This work is included in Gail R. Scott’s Marsden Hartley Legacy Project: Complete Paintings and Works on Paper with Bates College Museum of Art.

Marsden Hartley's Ladies' Gloves No. 2 is an evocative painting believed to be a tribute to Isabel Lachaise and captures the artist's profound sense of affection and loss. The painting's sentimental mood is conveyed through the depiction of a pair of gloves and a purse set against a rich black background, invoking a memory of the woman through objects intimately associated with her. As suggested by Hartley scholar Gail Scott, the work may reflect Hartley's gratitude to Isabel, who provided him solace in Georgetown, Maine, during the summer of 1937—just two years after the death of her husband (fellow artist and friend of Hartley, Gaston Lachaise), and following the tragic drowning of the Mason boys in Nova Scotia, with whom Hartley had developed a close bond. [1]

Hartley's use of such "object portraits" is a signature element in his oeuvre, with this work belonging to his "Glove Series." This series, which includes another closely related work Ladies' Gloves No. 1 (1937–38), portrays individuals indirectly through objects, a technique Hartley had employed in earlier works, such as his renowned "German Officer" series from 1914 to 1915. Here, the elegant, feminine gloves act as a stand-in for the woman herself, embodying Hartley's fascination with conveying identity and presence through absence.