Thomas Eakins
Louis N. Kenton (1865-1947) was Eakins's brother-in-law, having married Elizabeth Macdowell (1858-1953), the sister of Eakins' wife Susan, in 1889. Elizabeth studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, exhibited professionally, and traveled widely. Her marriage to Kenton was stormy and brief, and very little is known of it, or of Kenton. The title associated with this portrait, The Thinker, was believed to be based upon an inscription on the painting’s reverse, apparently placed there by Susan Eakins. From 1900 onwards, the portrait was widely exhibited and much admired. An oil study for the portrait is in the Farnsworth Library and Art Museum in Rockland, Maine.