[Seated woman in wingback rocking chair reading]

Rothko and his wife Edith Sachar (1912–1981) spent the summer of 1937 apart. Edith worked at Camp Lake Bryn Mawr, in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, while Rothko spent time in Mahopac, New York, about fifty miles north of Manhattan. Among the friends with whom he visited that summer was Nancy Weisman, who would give birth to a  boy in late August of that year. The woman in this watercolor resembles images of Nancy Weisman owned by the family; it may well have been painted during the summer of 1937 when Rothko spent time in Mahopac.