Robert Bosch. Back on the Internet, the author’s saucy creation keeps on soothing and inspiring and befriending, so much so that her spirit begins to rub off on her creator. One writes: “You make even the loneliest feel important, thank you.” Indeed, the Duchess replies to every single comment and tweet directed at her.

Stay up to date about our exhibitions, news, programs, and special offers. It’s no wonder that the Duchess Goldblatt selected Hals’s portrait as her earthly manifestation.

They find her amusing, comforting, assuring. continue to use the site without a

On Twitter, the Duchess is anything but isolated. Duchess Goldblatt is a fictitious character, invented for social media. We asked Her Grace a few questions to learn more about her relationship to the painting.

“Becoming Duchess Goldblatt” is one of the summer’s buzzy books — it garnered a starred review in the trade journal Kirkus and was named one of the New York Times’ 20 books to read in 2020 — but, frankly, I’m not feeling it. You will.”. Previously, she was a writer and editor at Minnesota Monthly magazine and at the Duluth News-Tribune. But how would you like to imagine your portrait found its way to the Gallery? Many of Your Grace’s fans have made pilgrimages to the Gallery to view your likeness.

The memoir’s author, we learn, is an anonymous middle-aged writer and editor from New York state.

I prefer to wonder what it’s like for you, as stewards of this great work of art, to have to go home at night and leave my portrait behind on the wall. Goldblatt is an alter ego, someone onto whom she can project her pain and have it come back in the form of jokes. One writes: “You make even the loneliest feel important, thank you.” Indeed, the Duchess replies to every single comment and tweet directed at her. We asked Her Grace a few questions to learn more about her relationship to the painting. At 81, Her Grace is the most famous resident of the imaginary town of Crooked Path, New York. What would you like your portrait to say to them, as they stand before it?

The writer admits to a very famous friend she meets at one point in the book that the Duchess “whispers” little prayers to each of her followers. I’ve loved you for years and years.” At times, her thrill at being accepted by the Famous made me wince. Her half-smile hints at a chuckle ready to burst into the open, as if she knows that in about four centuries her image will appear on mugs and bookmarks. After the divorce, the writer discusses getting onto social media with a friend (we can assume this conversation happened in the mid aughts). The author’s spirits lift over time as her creation becomes more popular, pulling her out of her isolation. “I’d always thought siblings were about the worst thing you could ever do to a kid.” Or: “Nobody ever gets anything they want in life, Lucy never got to be in the nightclub act, Ethel deserved better than Fred. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 240 pages, $16.59. But then 2020 happened ... Opening-night blowout win is 'good step' for Gophers basketball, Making Thanksgiving dinner for 2-4? Frans Hals painted this compelling image nearly 400 years ago. “I’m the one who knows she’s really making fun of me,” she writes in the memoir, “and it always makes me laugh to myself, even though I’m, technically, the one doing it.” As much as the Duchess and the writer are not the same, a lot of biography and fiction get dropped in a cocktail shaker and poured over Twitter: “For my visit to the Dorothy Parker Academy, I’m trying to choose one of the more joyful Christmas carols about the divorce discovery process.”, Through the course of the memoir the writer, perhaps more than Duchess, learns to be honest about her past and the pain in it: “My father’s memory is a blessing and a balm. What’s most astonishing is the relationship Duchess has with her community (upward of 25,000 followers on Twitter at last count). If you don’t know who Duchess Goldblatt is: jump in the pool. She is funny and imperious (as befits her title), she delights in the world and offers her hand in friendship—with a (virtual) glass of wine, or a slice of cake, or both—to everyone in it. That lesson can never be heard too often. Her followers are as faithful to her as she is to them. Her Grace’s chosen avatar is a work in the Gallery’s collection: Frans Hals’s Portrait of an Elderly Lady. The water’s warm. A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor's website. What’s most astonishing is the relationship Duchess has with her community (upward of 25,000 followers on Twitter at last count). Cargill loses title of largest private company in U.S. Where are the COVID-19 cases in Minnesota?

“Becoming Duchess Goldblatt” by Anonymous, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 240 pp. (Among them are several famous authors, including Elizabeth McCracken and Alexander Chee.)

© 2020 National Gallery of Art   Notices   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy. What do you imagine it was like to sit for a portrait by Frans Hals? And it’s why so many people trust her to tell them how to live, how to treat themselves with more compassion, how to treat each other better, too. I promise,” she tells one reader. An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week. In fact, the mighty Duchess Goldblatt – great beauty, lover of animals, ringleader of the Solid Goldblatt Dancers – was born of despair.

), “Duchess could say things I would never say,” she writes. An online avatar is born: Duchess Goldblatt, illustrated by a 17th-century painting titled “Portrait of an Elderly Lady,” resplendent in an Elizabethan ruff. Learn more. It’s anti-human. She only exists if they believe in her. Before the COVID-19 shutdown (the museum has since reopened some of its galleries but not apparently the one in which the painting appears), eager fans flocked to take selfies in front of the portrait, which depicts an unnamed woman with an impressive ruff around her neck. You only exist for me inside my mind. Not all readers will appreciate the Duchess’ humor or understand why anyone would bother to follow her online. “You will bear it,” she hears her fictional creation say. It’s got to be four or five times a week at least, I imagine. In fact, the mighty Duchess Goldblatt – great beauty, lover of animals, ringleader of the Solid Goldblatt Dancers – was born of despair.

“I love you,” Anonymous gushed to Lovett the first time she met him, backstage at a concert. The writer admits to a very famous friend she meets at one point in the book that the Duchess “whispers” little prayers to each of her followers. Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends. “A Continuous Line Drawing (Crooked Path) Portrait of Her Grace, Duchess Goldblatt” (2020) Digital. The first half of “Goldblatt” is full of sadness bordering on self-pity, every slight a hurt. It’s interesting to me that readers have found it incomprehensible that any woman today would choose this portrait as her avatar.

4th St and Constitution Ave NW If you’ll notice, I have a sweet expression on my face. It’s no wonder that the Duchess Goldblatt selected Hals’s portrait as her earthly manifestation.

Nobody else does, either. To refuse to acknowledge that my face is evidence of God’s hand at work in the world would be a sin against my gifts. It cheered me up to see the entries for the Duchess Goldblatt Dog show” One can almost picture Duchess Goldblatt as a character in Christopher Guest’s film “Best in Show.” There’s an air of the mockumentary around the entire production. The writer goes to great lengths in the book to demarcate herself from the Duchess. People assume it had to have been a man having some fun. Frans Hals, Portrait of an Elderly Lady , 1633, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.67 And then you have to start all over again from the beginning.