Renowned for his portrait paintings, John Singer Sargent was one of the most remarkable artists of the Edwardian era. He combined influences and left careful references, including those to the works of Bruegel, Velazquez, and van Dyck. He also loved a good provocation, sometimes putting his career at risk. Read on to get familiar with ten works by John Singer Sargent.
1. John Singer Sargent’s “Dr. Samuel Pozzi at Home,” 1881
John Singer Sargent was born in Florence to American parents. He studied in France and lived a significant part of his life in London. That diversity of places partially formed his creative language. Although he was far removed from the avant-garde experiments of his era, his art was still rich with influences and references. His Parisian tutor was obsessed with Diego Velazquez and based his teaching on the Spanish master’s works. Other prominent influences in Sargent’s work came from Anthony van Dyck (contemporaries even called him “the van Dyck of our times”), Raphael, Titian, and other great masters.
One of the most famous works of Sargent’s early period was the red portrait of Samuel Pozzi, a prominent French gynecologist. Sargent painted him in a way rather unconventional for a doctor—wearing a red Japanese-inspired robe and embroidered slippers. Pozzi was a remarkable figure in both his personal and professional life. Charismatic and tactful, he advocated for an ethical approach to his profession that would consider the mental state of the patient. Moreover, he was one of the early proponents of the use of antiseptics. Pozzi had a successful, long-lasting career until the age of 71 when he was shot by a former patient who claimed Pozzi made him impotent.
2. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit was another early masterpiece by Sargent that attracted the attention of critics and the public, although this attention was not entirely positive. Edward Darley Boit was an American landscape artist and a close friend of Sargent. His daughters—Julia, Mary Louisa, Florence, and Jane—posed in the family’s Parisian apartment. In 1997, the heiress to the family donated the Chinese vases that are visible on the painting to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The critics noted the painting’s complex composition, mockingly calling it “four corners and a void.” Clearly, it was inspired by Diego Velazquez’s famous Las Meninas. Some critics noted the slightly disturbing undertone of the scene—as if the artist somehow predicted the future of the four girls. None of the Boit sisters started their own families, and all of them, to various degrees, experienced mental health issues.
3. Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood, 1885
John Singer Sargent made respectable (at least, usually) salon portraits of wealthy patrons in lavish dresses, but he was also not too far removed from the more progressive art movements of his era. He was a close friend of Claude Monet and a collector of his work. After Sargent’s death, his heirs found an oil sketch in his studio depicting Monet and his wife working on a landscape outdoors.
4. Portrait of Madame X, 1884
The most scandalous and famous painting by Sargent nearly ended his career. In 1884, he painted Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, the young wife of a prominent French banker and a French Creole. Even though Sargent omitted the name of his model, her facial features were too recognizable and caused an immense scandal during the painting’s presentation.
Because of Gautreau’s busy social life, the posing time for Sargent was strictly limited. Thus, the arms of the figure were modeled by one of the artist’s male friends. However, the main issue with the public was not the supposed disproportion. Critics were offended by the revealing dress and, even worse, the confident pose of the model. Combined with her ethnicity and rumors of infidelity, the painting was labeled as vulgar and immoral.
5. Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife, 1885
Another compositional oddity in Sargent’s work was his portrait of the famous writer Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson and Sargent knew each other for years and were close friends. The writer was known for his active, if not frantic, behavior, constantly pacing around and talking endlessly. Sargent captured this habit by letting Steveson almost move out of the picture frame, leaving behind his wife, weary from the writer’s musings. Fanny Stevenson was also a prolific writer and an enthusiastic equal partner in his travels.
6. Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1888
In 1888, Sargent came to America upon personal invitation from Isabella Stewart Gardner, a Boston art collector and patron. Knowing Sargent after his Portrait of Madame X controversy, she commissioned him a portrait, unafraid of her reputation. The final result was equally breathtaking and scandalous. The tapestry on the background framed Gardner’s head like a halo, turning her, as one of her friends noted, into a “Byzantine Madonna.”
However, John Singer Sargent would not be himself without a bit of scandal. Known for her collection of pearl necklaces, in the painting, Isabella Gardner is seen wearing one of them around her waist as a belt. Traditionally, pieces of jewelry worn on the “wrong” body parts (e.g., an earring repurposed as a ring or a necklace as a belt) were markers that the said piece was gifted by a lover and not by a legitimate husband. Thus, such an unexpected choice provoked rumors of Sargent’s possible affair with his model.
7. Mrs. Gardner in White, 1922
Another significant portrait of Isabella Gardner was painted by John Singer Sargent just two years before her death. In 1922, Gardner suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed—a striking contrast with the active and busy woman she once was. Sargent painted his friend with dignity, clad in white fabric that hid her frail body. This small watercolor became the last portrait of the famous collector and patron.
8. Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 1889
Ellen Terry was one of the most famous English actresses of her time, particularly known for her roles in Shakespeare’s plays. John Singer Sargent painted her in her iconic role of Lady Macbeth. The most remarkable feature of the painting, however, was Terry’s dress. Woven in a way that resembled Medieval chain mail, it was decorated with more than a thousand pieces of real wings of the green jewel beetle, which gave it a supernatural green glow and intense color. Miraculously, the dress survived for more than a century and, in 2011, was put on display in the Ellen Terry Museum after an extensive restoration.
9. Portrait of Lady Sassoon, 1907
A successful artist with a non-aristocratic background, John Singer Sargent was never truly accepted by the higher social circles where he sold his art. As some art historians believe, for that reason, he often became close with the Jewish nouveau-riche families who similarly were frowned upon by the crowd of hereditary titles and generational wealth. Moreover, other artists and critics sometimes judged him for even accepting commissions from Jewish patrons. One of such commissioners was Aline Caroline de Rothschild, Lady Sassoon. Heiress to the Rothschild empire, Lady Sassoon was herself a talented artist.
10. Gassed, 1919: The Unusual Twist of John Singer Sargent’s Oeuvre
John Singer Sargent was known as a society portrait painter, yet one of his most important works has nothing to do with the privileged. In 1918, Sargent visited the World War I Western Front upon the request of the British War Memorials Committee. Among many horrifying events, Sargent witnessed the aftermath of a mustard gas attack. Highly toxic, mustard gas burned out the lungs of those affected, left blisters on their skin, and damaged their eyesight, often permanently. To leave the battlefield, groups of blind soldiers formed a column holding to each others’ shoulders, led by one person who could still see. Sargent’s painting was both a personal observation and a reference to Peter Bruegel the Elder’s The Parable of the Blind, which featured a similar composition.
