Technical Notes
The support is a plain-weave canvas that has an average of sixteen threads per centimeter in both the vertical and horizontal directions. The canvas is unlined and retains its original tacking edges.

The painting is attached by two different sizes of tacks to a keyable wooden stretcher that has mortised corner joins and is thought to be original to the painting. There is slight cusping around the smaller tacks. The stretcher wood, which appears to be a softwood, was tangentially cut. Canvas pliers used to stretch the canvas made indentations along the stretcher surface.

The moderately thick, warm white ground was evenly applied; it does not entirely hide texture of the canvas. The ground extends over the tacking edges and appears to have been commercially prepared.

The brushwork is fluid and loose. Harding built up the painting by first using mid-tones, then adding highlights and darks to define the forms further. He applied the paint by means of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques. Most of the face and figure were painted before the bonnet was completed. Harding sketched the bonnet in loosely with warm grays, and then painted the background while leaving the cap area in reserve. He finished the bonnet with semitransparent whites and grays.

Harding painted the shawl broadly in opaque orangy-red, achieving mid-tones by blending darker paint into lighter red. He applied the dark shadows in the shawl after the red underneath was partially dry. Changes made in the shawl are now visible as pentimenti on the sitter’s proper right side and along her back. The shawl originally rose higher up her back on her proper left side. In addition, the shawl initially was draped higher on her proper right arm.

There is low impasto on the lace detail, the highlights on the nose, the colored detail on the shawl, and on the jewelry. The opaque white dabs of paint used to describe highlights on the bonnet were applied with thin, wavy brushstrokes. The column and red curtain were applied wet-on-wet over the green-gray paint of the background.

There are few losses in the paint surface; most occur along the top fold-over edge. A synthetic-resin varnish coating was applied in 1979. Examination under ultraviolet light suggests that there are remnants of an older natural-resin coating underneath.

Frame Notes
The frame consists of a gilded-softwood molding and has mitered corners with cross-spline construction. There is a thin cove at the site edge, followed by a plain flat and an applied band of alternating flower- and anthemion-leaf ornament. The outer section is a wide ogee-style molding, finished with a pebbled surface; each corner contains low-relief scroll-and-floral ornament. The back panel, which is not gilded, is finished with matte yellow paint. There are two brass rings screwed into the top of the frame. The back of the frame was built out in 1997 in order to accommodate glazing.