Leila

Stoddard studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins, Thomas Anshutz, and William Merritt Chase. This delightful painting, which captures the spontaneous, freckled smile of a young red-headed girl holding a straw hat with pink ribbon, won the Fellowship Prize at the Annual Exhibition of The Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia in 1916. That same year, it was donated to the Reading Public Museum by philanthropist and textile manufacturer, George D. Horst.