Touching on the picture's melancholy, John Updike referred to the painting when he wrote "Discomfort and a grieving inwardness distinguish the best of his (Eakins's) many portraits."
Bezugnehmend auf die Melancholie schrieb John Updike über das Bild als Ausdruck von Kummer und Unbehagen (“Discomfort and a grieving inwardness distinguish the best of his (Eakins’s) many portraits.”).