SOURCE: Valenti, Patricia Dunlavy. “Sophia Peabody Hawthorne: A Study of Artistic Influence.” Studies in the American Renaissance (1990): 1-21.

In the following essay, Valenti highlights the importance of Hawthorne's painting and appreciation of art and the influence these had on others around her, including her husband.

“Sophia, wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne” is the simple inscription which marks the grave of a woman remembered for her marriage to one of the foremost men in American letters. However, she deserves to be remembered among the earliest women in American painting. The flawlessness of her copies could have provided her with a comfortable living, but she aspired with the intensity and seriousness of a professional to surpass the status of an amateur or copyist to become a painter of original canvases. Her aspirations were affirmed by the leading painters of the day who became her mentors. Influenced as she was by Chester...