Harriet Johnston

Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston served as first lady for her bachelor uncle James Buchanan. She was passionate about the visual arts and bequeathed her vast painting and sculpture collection to the Smithsonian.

Remarkably few portrait busts of women were made during the nineteenth century. This marble portrait, by William Henry Rinehart, highlights Lane’s bare shoulders above a deeply plunging neckline, a style she made fashionable when she altered her inauguration ball gown by lowering it two full inches.