This intimate domestic scene of Marion Deering reading to her husband is one of Zorn’s finest double portraits. Wearing a bandage to conceal an eye injury, Charles Deering sits in the background listening intently and smoking a pipe. A wealthy Chicago businessman, Deering shares the title of Anders Zorn’s greatest American patron and friend with Isabella Gardner. Like Gardner, Deering first met Zorn at the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair, and started collecting his work on the spot.

Source: Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America, special exhibition on view in the museum's Hostetter Gallery, February 28 – May, 2013.

Oliver Tostmann, Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America, Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2013, pp. 148 – 149, cat. 23.