Portrait of Miss Phillips

A delicate pen-and-ink portrait study by Martha S. Day, rendered in the neoclassical tradition of 19th-century American draftsmanship. The work captures a young woman in profile, her hair arranged in the fashionable coiffure of the period, secured beneath a decorative snood. Fine linear hatching defines facial features and fabric texture, while the artist's signature appears discretely at lower right. The yellowed paper and period notation suggest this sketch served either as a finished work or preparatory study—a common practice among portraitists of the era seeking to capture likeness and character through economical line work.