John Singer Sargent (Florence, 1856 - 1925, London)
Mrs. Gardner in White, 1922
Watercolor on paper , 43 x 32 cm (16 15/16 x 12 5/8 in.)
This vertical watercolor painting on paper illustrates Mrs. Gardner leaning back on a daybed. The bedspread is a light beige with a dark beige floral pattern. The daybed is long and has gray fringe along the bottom that touches the floor. Gardner is in the center of the panel, leaning on the white pillow with red stripes behind her. She is depicted in a long bright white fabric fully covering her body except her face. Even her head and neck are covered by the fabric like a headscarf. The white fabric cascades to the floor. We can only see her eyes and nose and slightly opened mouth. Her skin tone is light, and barely differs in color from the fabric around her. The background is shown in a mix of light blue, dark blue and brown stains that are the suggestion of pillows. The watercolor is surrounded by a white mat, and has a simple gilded frame.
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Object details
Accession number
P11e13
Primary Creator
John Singer Sargent (Florence, 1856 - 1925, London)
Full title
Mrs. Gardner in White
Creation Date
1922
Provenance
Gift from John Singer Sargent to Isabella Stewart Gardner on 26 September 1922.
Marks
Inscribed and signed in ink (upper right): To my friend Mrs Gardner / John S. Sargent
Dimensions
43 x 32 cm (16 15/16 x 12 5/8 in.)
Display Media
Watercolor on paper
Dimension Notes
Frame: 62.23 x 49.53 cm (24 1/2 x 19 1/2 in.)
Web Commentary
John Singer Sargent painted this portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner shortly after she had suffered a debilitating stroke, and he was working on the mural decoration for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She described this work as an informal sketch, and called it “a water-colour, not meant, I hope, to look like me.” The calmness of her pose and shroud-like swath of white fabric express an otherworldliness that bears little resemblance to her previous ebullient character. This is the last portrait of Isabella before her death in 1924.
Permanent Gallery Location
Macknight Room
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 74.Morris Carter. "Mrs. Gardner & The Treasures of Fenway Court" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), p. 55.Kristin A. Mortimer. "Report of the Acting Director." Fenway Court (1988), p. 68, ill. 62.Corinna Lindon Smith. Interesting People (Norman, Oklahoma, 1962), pp. 156-157.“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 31 (31 Mar. 1963), p. 2. (excerpting Corinna Lindon Smith, pp. 156-57)Rollin Hadley. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 8, no. 15 (13 Dec. 1964), p. 2. A. Hyatt Mayor. "Mrs. Gardner Comes to Call." Fenway Court (1972), p. 40, ill. 41.Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 231-32.Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), pp. 224-25. Fausto Calderai and Alan Chong. Furnishing a Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Collection of Italian Furniture (Boston, 2011), pp. 72-73, fig. B.Christine M. E. Guth. "Multisensorial Asia" in Alan Chong and Noriko Murai (eds.). Inventing Asia: American Perspectives Around 1900. Fenway Court, vol. 33 (Boston, 2014), pp. 92-93, fig. 8. Nathaniel Silver "Isabella Stewart Gardner, Simone Martini, and Gold-Ground Paintings in America" in Nathaniel Silver (ed.). Simone Martini in Orvieto. Exh. cat. (Boston, MA: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2022) p. 35, fig. 15.Rights and reproductions
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Macknight Room
Commentary
John Singer Sargent painted this portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner shortly after she had suffered a debilitating stroke, and he was working on the mural decoration for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She described this work as an informal sketch, and called it “a water-colour, not meant, I hope, to look like me.” The calmness of her pose and shroud-like swath of white fabric express an otherworldliness that bears little resemblance to her previous ebullient character. This is the last portrait of Isabella before her death in 1924.