John Singer Sargent (Florence, 1856 - 1925, London)
Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast, 1882-1883
Oil on panel, 32 x 41 cm (12 5/8 x 16 1/8 in.)
This horizontal oil painting shows a light-skinned young woman sitting on a barely noticeable dark brown chair, behind a large brown table. She is seated to our right. Her face is in profile, her hazelnut colored hair in a bun, leaving her pink left ear facing us. She has a broad forehead, rounded eyebrows, straight nose, fine pink lips, rounded chin, and a long neck. Her facial expression is serious, and the direction of her gaze is pointing to the far left of the painting, fixated on the glass in her hand. She is leaning forward slightly, delicately raising her right shoulder up, bending her head to her right, gracefully holding with her right arm an extended tulip-shaped Champagne glass. Her extended right arm occupies almost the whole width of the painting panel, from the center to the left. Her left arm, elbow, and hand are leaning on the dark brown table in front of her, her fingers are bent, pointing towards her body, except her pinky finger, which is extended and leaning also on the brown table. She is wearing a light gray dress with a V-neck, and no sleeves. Over the dress she is wearing a translucent fabric that covers part of her right upper arm, part of her chest and her back. Her left arm is completely covered, leaving most of her skin uncovered. Under her extended lower right arm and hand holding the glass of Champagne, there are two bouquets of white-pinkish flowers. These flowers have some details of different colors; dark blue, dark and soft gray, and violet. The background of this painting is different shades of dark brown, with no identifiable objects except a bright white square in the top left, that appears to be a light source. In the upper right there's an inscription and signature in gray cursive paint that says "Avegno témoignage d'amitié / John S. Sargent". The painting rests in a gilded wooden frame with grooved, horizontal stripes.
Blue Room
Commentary
Madame Pierre Gautreau, born Virginie Avegno (1859–1915), was Madame X, the statuesque sitter in Sargent’s most notorious portrait (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Critics considered the portrait in scandalously bad taste, and the sitter’s mother asked Sargent to withdraw the painting from the Salon of 1884, which he refused to do. This much smaller and more intimate painting was done a year earlier, and was given by Sargent to Madame Gautreau’s mother. By purchasing this painting at the end of her life, Mrs. Gardner acquired an important document of Sargent’s career, and also a slice of her own history, since she had wanted her portrait by Sargent to rival the sensuous impact of the infamous Madame X.
Source: Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 203.
Source: Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 203.