American Art Collaborative

Gertrude Bloede was the sister of Abbott Thayer’s first wife, Kate. The Bloedes were German immigrants who lived in Brooklyn and regularly entertained a circle of intellectuals. Both daughters were highly creative and independent: Kate was an artist, and Gertrude was a noted writer who published her romantic poetry under the pseudonym Stuart Sterne. In this portrait sketch, Thayer gave his sister-in-law a faraway look, as though she were lost in thought, perhaps composing a poem
“About her head or floating feet/No halo’s starry gleam/Still dark and swift uprising, like/A bubble in a stream.” Stuart Sterne, “My Father’s Child,” reprinted in Stedman, ed., An American Anthology, 1787–1900, 190