From 1912 to 1957, this grand portrait of Doris Duke’s mother, Nanaline Holt Inman Duke (1871?-1962), hung in the library of the Duke family’s residence in New York City at 1 East 78th Street. It was moved to Newport in the late 1950s when Doris Duke gave the New York house to New York University.
Nanaline was born in Macon, Georgia at a time of great change in American society in the years following the Civil War. She grew up in southern culture but spent most of her married life in the north, becoming part of the New York and later Newport social elite. Nanaline, like many other genteel women inthe period, married and had children. She hosted society events and philanthropic fundraisers in Newport and in New York City.
The portrait was made in 1907 around the time that Nanaline, the widow of wealthy Atlanta-based cotton merchant, William Inman, married tobacco and energy tycoon James Buchanan Duke.
