Millicent Jarvis worked for nearly thirty years in the Boston area, the best Boston painters of the time had a great degree of influence on her work. She was listed as Miss Millicent Jarvis when she opened a studio at 149A Tremont Street in 1876. From 1882 until 1892 she was not listed in the City Directory. She reappeared in 1893 at 180 Tremont Street, and two years later moved to 108 Mt. Vernon Street on Beacon Hill where she maintained a studio until 1903. Jarvis painted portraits, still lifes and landscapes. She exhibited two oils at the Boston Art Club in 1877, entitled Wild Roses and Portrait. In 1881 she exhibited a watercolor entitled River sketch, Concord, Mass.
Woman with a Rose in Her Hair is a classic example of the type of portraiture made popular by such well-known Boston and New England painters as Edmund Tarbell and John Singer Sargent. There is an understated elegance to these paintings, which are often tonal in palette with the beautiful woman casually posed in profile. Often the artist would strategically add a bold color such as red or yellow around the woman's face or near her hands to draw focus to these areas of the painting. Jarvis has done just this in her painting, which is most likely why Vose Galleries and the Fuller Museum included it in their exhibitions focusing on the best examples of paintings from the Boston Arts Club.
Private Collection, Medfield, MA
Vose Galleries of Boston, Inc., Boston MA, Fall 2000
Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, MA, Boston Art Club Exhibition, July 3-September 19, 1993
Fuller Museum of Art Exhibition tour of United States museums from 1995-1999
Comenos Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Smith-Kramer Fine Arts
Artists of the Boston Art Club