Zara Anishanslin is assistant professor of history and art history at the University of Delaware.
"Anishanslin is a good sleuth. . . . Her scholarly commitment
and her enthusiasm are disarming."—Victoria Glendinning, Literary
Review
Finalist for the 2016 First Book Award given by the Berkshire
Conference of Women Historians
"This dazzling book discovers within one small canvas a brilliant
array of lives, trades, circuits, and empires. Written with verve
and insight, Anishanslin’s Portrait of a Woman in Silk paints a
global early America in vivid color. It will astonish."—Jane
Kamensky, author of A Revolution in Color: The World of John
Singleton Copley
"Anishanslin’s capacity to let objects speak about things beyond
status and refinement is remarkable. This is hard to do, and she
does it brilliantly, and beautifully."—Lauren Winner, Duke
University
"Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Behind this deceptively modest (but
alluring) title lies a book of stunning insight and creative
achievement. No other work I can think of brings together such
a range of viewpoints: the mental with the material, the personal
with the global, a raft of technical details
with extraordinary conceptual depth. From a single
painting Anishanslin opens a vast panorama, reaching to the
farthest corners of the eighteenth-century world."—John Demos,
author of The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early
America
"Extremely intriguing. No one has written such a book, nor made
such an argument."—David Hancock, The University of Michigan
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |