John Singer Sargent (Florence, 1856 - 1925, London)
Mrs. Gardner, 1887
Graphite on wove paper, 20.5 x 12.9 cm (8 1/16 x 5 1/16 in.)
This pencil drawing is a sketch of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s head and neck. There are continuous left to right, back and forth, diagonal gestures with a pencil around her head and into her hair, shoulders, and neck to form a darker background area that is more prominent than her barely delineated facial features. Her pose is frontal, but slightly turned, so that only her left ear is visible. Her nose and mouth are lightly shadowed. There is just a hint of eyebrows and slightly parted lips. Her eyes are wide set, the irises formed by diagonal pencil shading similar to the background. The artist’s signature is present in the bottom right corner.
Short Gallery
Commentary
Isabella Gardner and John Singer Sargent first met in 1886 in the artist’s studio in London. There Gardner admired Sargent’s daring portrait Madame X (now the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) so much that she commissioned him to paint her likeness. This sketch of Gardner’s head set against a dark background was probably an early preparatory drawing for the oil portrait which Sargent painted from December 1887 to January 1888. Gardner inscribed the drawing with Sargent’s name and the date, most likely recording when she received the sympathetic portrait from him as a gift.
Source: Oliver Tostmann and Anne-Marie Eze, The Inscrutable Eye: Watercolors by John Singer Sargent in Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Collection, exhibition on view in the Museum's Fenway Gallery, October 31, 2013–January 20, 2014.
Source: Oliver Tostmann and Anne-Marie Eze, The Inscrutable Eye: Watercolors by John Singer Sargent in Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Collection, exhibition on view in the Museum's Fenway Gallery, October 31, 2013–January 20, 2014.