Untitled (Portrait of a Young Woman)

Ida Josephine Burgess renders a young woman in profile using pen and ink, her technique combining fine cross-hatching with careful line work to model form and fabric. The subject wears her hair bound in a kerchief, her gaze directed downward in a moment of quiet repose. Burgess, a Chicago-born artist working in the late nineteenth century, demonstrates command of portraiture conventions while capturing individual character through selective detail—the texture of cloth, the turn of the head, the subtle play of shadow across the face. This intimate drawing reflects the period's continuing tradition of portrait studies as both artistic practice and record.