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Portrait of a girl
1896
Medium
oil on canvas on composition board
Measurements
60.8 × 50.8 cm
Credit Line
June Sherwood Bequest, 2026
Gallery location
Gallery 7
Level 2, NGV Australia
About this work
Florence Fuller was born on the Cape of Good Hope in 1867 and her family settled in Melbourne the following year. She enrolled in the National Gallery School in 1883 and trained with her uncle, the artist Robert Dowling. By the late 1880s, Fuller had established herself as a professional painter. In 1892 she visited South Africa before settling in Europe for a decade. Between 1895 and 1904, her work was exhibited at both the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy in London. Painted in Paris, the subtle tonalities of Portrait of a girl and its fashionable Japoniste theme demonstrate the influence of the American artist James McNeill Whistler, who at the time was a leading artist in France.