Mrs. King’s face was depicted looking straight at the viewer and in her hair was a fashionable ‘Diana crescent’ of diamonds. It was catalogued as follows in 1895, October 31st – December 7th, at the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN, New York, ‘Loan Exhibition of Portraits’:
[221: Mrs. Wm. F. King. Lent by William F. King. Esq.]
The sitter was almost certainly the wife of William F. King (1850-1909) who was a prominent New York Dry Goods merchant (of 410 Broadway) and was first President of the Merchants’ Association of New York which was founded in 1897. Her maiden name was Martha Kneeland. They lived briefly at 11 East 61st Street before 1895 which they renovated and then sold the house to Lord Alfred Paget two months after Paget married Miss Pauline Whitney on November 12 1895. William and Martha King had a daughter who became Mrs. Edward H. Blanc who lived at 212 East 48th Street and died in 1953 aged 66. Mrs King died on January 23, 1916 at St. Luke’s Hospital at the age of 57. In 1911 Martha King found herself in a famous legal battle with the Union Trust over a house at 56th Street and Madison Avenue that had been gifted to her in 1902 by her husband.
Perhaps after being exhibited Mrs. King decided she did not like the picture and her husband returned it to the artist? Whatever the reason, at some point afterward, the artist has clearly scraped out the head of Mrs. King and inserted the profile of his sister Adelina. At the same time he covered the décolletage of Mrs. King, the New York socialite, with suitable white material for his married sister in provincial Eastern Switzerland.
The photograph of this portrait in its original state is from the artist’s papers. This is certainly the portrait mentioned under GÄHLER-MÜLLER, Adelina.
