Lot Essay
Considered to be the single most important woman painter of the Harnett School, Claude Raguet Hirst began exhibiting at the National Academy of Design in 1884. Keeping within the acceptable and limited domains for women in the later nineteenth century, Hirst's painting was primarily restricted to fruit and flower still lifes, usually on a small scale and often in watercolor, denoting their lesser importance. However, in 1886, when Harnett returned from Europe and moved into a studio two doors down from Hirst, her subject matter quickly shifted to books, pipes and drinking glasses--objects generally associated with a man's world. A Winter's Tale, reflects this transformation and demonstrates the influence of Harnett in Hirst's careful attention to both detailed and reflective surfaces.