American Art Collaborative

"Every picture should have an atmosphere of its own---to be a little world by itself, back and within the frame . . ." George Fuller, George Fuller Centennial Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1923
This painting shows the heroine of George Eliot's poem The Spanish Gypsy. In the poem the gypsy Fedalma must choose between family duty and the prospect of a happy marriage with a wealthy duke ("Women in the Literary Marketplace," Cornell Univ. Library Web site). Fuller chose to show her holding a gold necklace, a gift from the duke that symbolized the splendor he could offer her