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Sarah Goodridge, slikarka minijaturnih portreta, 1828. godine naslikala je svoje grudi (''Otkrivena lepota'') na malom komadu slonovače i darovala Danielu Websteru, nakon nekog vremena od smrti njegove supruge.

Autoportret njenih grudi se nalazi u Metropoliten muzeju u Njujorku.

''Daniel Webster was a passionate, romantic man all his life, however much he hid his feelings from public view. He needed female society and contact, and in this period of  bereavement he appears to have developed a strong emotional bond with Sarah Goodridge.''

Remini, Robert Vincent: Daniel Webster : the man and his time

Na kraju, Daniel se zbog bogatstva oženio ćerkom trgovca, a Sara je ostala sama do kraja života, postepeno gubeći vid.

Danielova porodica je kasnije tvrdila da je Sara bila njegova verenica.

''She had a long-term association with Daniel Webster, a politician who began services as Senator from Massachusetts in 1827.

Webster sent her more than 40 letters between 1827 and 1851, and in time, his greetings to her became increasingly familiar; his last letters were addressed to "My dear, good friend", which was out of character. She, meanwhile, painted him more than a dozen times, and left her hometown of Boston to visit him in Washington, DC at least twice, once in 1828 after his first wife's death and again in 1841–42, when Webster was separated from his second wife.

Goodridge completed Beauty Revealed in 1828, likely from looking at herself in a mirror. Several works have been cited as possible inspirations, including John Vanderlyn's Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos and Horatio Greenough's sculpture Venus Victrix.
Goodridge sent her portrait to Webster when he was a new widower, and, based on its miniature format, it was likely intended for his eyes alone.
The American art critic John Updike suggests that the artist intended it to offer herself to Webster; he writes that the bared breasts appear to say "We are yours for the taking, in all our ivory loveliness, with our tenderly stippled nipples".

Beauty Revealed, 1828.

Edited 18 hours ago18 hr by Klara