Beauty Revealed

Beauty Revealed is an 1828 self-portrait by the American artist Sarah Goodridge. Depicting only the artist's bared breasts surrounded by white cloth, the 2.6-by-3.1-inch (6.7 by 8 cm) painting, originally backed with paper, is now in a modern frame. Goodridge, aged forty when she completed the watercolor portrait miniature on a piece of ivory, presented the breasts as youthful and individualized. She employed a frontal view that showed only the area from the collarbone to just underneath the breasts, thereby anonymizing the portrait.

Goodridge gave the portrait to statesman Daniel Webster, who was a frequent subject and possibly a lover, following the death of his wife; she may have intended to provoke him into marrying her. Although Webster married someone else, his family held onto the portrait until the 1980s, when it was auctioned at Christie's. Purchased by Gloria and Richard Manney in 1981, the painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006. It has been read as a work of erotica, as well as an expression of the artist's confident sexuality.