Julius LeBlanc Stewart (1855-1919) was born to wealth, which made the artistic life easier than most others found it. Wealth also provided social connections leading to the subject matter for many of his paintings. He was whisked off to Paris with his family at about age 10, and spent the rest of his life in Europe, as best I can tell.
A big problem for me is that I can find little regarding Stewart on the Internet or in my library of art-related books. His skimpy Wikipedia entry seems to have the most information.
Stewart can perhaps best be compared artistically to James Tissot, who also favored high society scenes for much of his career. Tissot was born 19 years earlier, but both died in their mid-60s. As best I can tell from small, Web-based images, Stewart's paintings seem more pleasing than those by Tissot, which generally have a brittle, hard-edged character.
Stewart was just getting started when these two images were painted. He seems to have used the same model and costume for both.
Women reading or reacting to letters was a popular late-19th century subject for many artists.
One of Stewart's better-known paintings.
The yacht was owned by James Gordon Bennett. And that's Lillie Langtry towards the right.
Stewart made cityscapes in the Venice area over the years.
He painted quite a few scenes of nude nymphs in grassy and woodsy settings.
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