At first glance, this painting feels like a photograph. Her name was Rebecca Whelen, and she was the daughter of a trustee at the Pennsylvania Academy where the painter, Thomas Anshutz, taught. The pairing of a woman at leisure with the name of a flower (the original work is titled A Rose) was common in early 20th-century works such as this.
With her expression, we felt like she was contemplating her next move. She's seated comfortably, but also gives the feeling that she's smart enough to know when it will be her time to "make a stand."
A paper doll-esque edge was added to the original image to evoke how disposable women must have felt in this time period, but they were also on the cusp of entering rooms and spaces they hadn't previously. The rest of the background was blurred from the original to bring Rebecca more into focus. 

Artwork Details:
- Based on the original art "A Rose" by Thomas Anshutz, 1907
- One of the most gifted American art teachers, Anshutz links the realism of his mentor Thomas Eakins with that of the Ashcan School, some of whom were his students. Perhaps because Anshutz spent so much time teaching, he painted only about 130 oils. Some of the most impressive belong to a series of images of Rebecca H. Whelen, daughter of a trustee of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Anshutz taught. The woman at leisure and the likening of a beautiful woman to a flower are common themes in late-nineteenth-century American painting. They reflect the contemporary definition of a woman's proper sphere: the realm of leisure, beauty, and the aesthetic, harmonious domestic environment. "A Rose" reflects Anshutz's simultaneous appreciation of Eakins's academic rigor and psychological probing and John Singer Sargent's painterly freedom.
- "A Rose" also suggests the influence of Diego Velázquez and James McNeill Whistler on late-nineteenth-century painters, including Eakins and Sargent as well as Anshutz. In portraying the young woman as contemplative and yet intellectually and emotionally alert, Anshutz also anticipates the earthier women painted by members of the Ashcan School and other twentieth-century realists.