The Best Loved of All
Date1893
Artist
Katharine Pyle
(American painter, illustrator, and author, 1863–1938)
Illustration Citation"The Best of All," by Katharine Pyle, in St. Nicholas, December 1893
MediumInk on illustration board
Dimensionscomposition: 10 1/8 × 6 1/2 in. (25.7 × 16.5 cm)
sheet: 16 15/16 × 11 3/16 in. (43 × 28.4 cm)
sheet: 16 15/16 × 11 3/16 in. (43 × 28.4 cm)
Credit LineGift of Willard S. Morse
Object number1900-105
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextThe youngest child of the Pyle family, Katharine was prolific as both author and illustrator. At the turn of the twentieth century, many considered art an appropriate extension of women's "natural" talent for beautifying their surroundings, but there was still resistance to women as professional artists. The artist and illustrator Joseph Pennell offered Katharine Pyle as an example of why there was "no earthly reason why women should not be illustrators."