O’DONNELL, Nina
Location:
Present Whereabouts Unknown.
Exhibition:
THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN, New York, April 1890, No. 162 as ‘Portrait of Mrs. Nina O’Donnell.’
Bibliography:
New York Herald, April 4, 1890
Maria Naylor (Ed.), National Academy of Design Exhibition Record 1861-1900, Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1973, 2 vols., Vol. II, p. 670.
The sitter was probably the Mrs Nina O’Donnell who lived at 25 West 34th Street in 1898, and whom the New York Times of 8 January 1898 reported spent most of her time in Paris. She was apparently the sister of Stephen J. Thompson who died on 27 April 1897, leaving three wills, but whose income derived from the millionaire estate of his grand uncle William D. Thompson who died in 1874, and who came originally from Baltimore. There was another sister, Marie Louise Norris, wife of Alfred E. Norris of 2043 Locust Street, Philadelphia with whom her mother Josephine L. Thompson lived.
The New York Times, 12 July 1903, reported a Mrs. Nina O’Donnell having died on 6 July 1903, wife of the late Courtney O’Donnell of Baltimore, where she was interred.
—
The New York Herald of Friday, April 4, 1890 in stating that this portrait of a young woman in evening dress was currently on display at the top of the stairs leading to the south gallery of the exhibition at the National Academy of Design and a good likeness, described Muller-Ury as ‘…a man of considerable talent.’
