Inasmuch as she collected objects for her private enjoyment, Mrs. By the time of her death in 1914, she had amassed a collection of over six hundred archaeological objects. Draper was an avid collector, whose taste ranged from late eighteenth century French portrait miniatures, to Egyptian scarab amulets from the Ptolemaic Period, to antique books and papers covering topics as varied as mythology and folklore, to the history of military costume. In addition to supporting her husband’s astrological research, Mrs. Draper, upon direction to count the seconds during the eclipse, “consented to sit inside a tent and see nothing of the extraordinary spectacle,” as “it was feared that the sight of the eclipse might affect the accuracy of her counting, and she therefore made this personal sacrifice in order to assist her husband to correct result” ( Bulletin of The New York Public Library, May 1915, p. Draper’s observance of the total eclipse of the sun on July 29, 1878, Mrs. For the next fifteen years, the two worked side by side, her dedication evinced by a popular anecdote that circulated at the time. Draper was widely known for her personal commitment to her husband’s work within the first year of marriage she assisted him in the arduous task of creating a twenty-eight inch reflecting telescope at his private observatory at Hastings-on-Hudson. In 1867, Mary Anna Palmer, the daughter of successful New York real estate financier Courtland Palmer, married astronomer and astronomical photography pioneer, Dr. The artist, while still retaining the dark, tonal palette first adopted during his studies at the Royal Academy in Munich, began at this point to embrace the more progressive decorative and aesthetic innovations of Whistler and his followers. Draper in strict profile, flanked by her two beloved greyhounds, the portrait marks a turning point in Alexander’s career. Anna Palmer Draper, completed in New York in the late 1880s, is an elegant life-size example of John White Alexander’s society portraits.
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