Lady Sassoon
John Singer Sargent
-- American painter
1907
Private collection
Oil on canvas
Size?
Jpg:
artrenewal.org
Sargent painted a portrait of Aline,
Lady Sassoon, in 1907. The Sassoon family were initially not completely
won over by the portrait. It was apparently then that Sargent made his
well-known comment, "It seems there is something wrong with the mouth!
A portrait is a painting with a little something wrong about the mouth."
(Stansky p. 19) The portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1907.
When the Hon. Evan Charteris discussed
the portrait in his biography of Sargent, he described it thus:
[Editor's Note - paragraph
breaks added with p]
In the portrait of Lady Sassoon,
Sargent has conveyed a subtle impression of the individuality of his sitter.
Evidently he was confronted with a highly strung temperament, features
of exceptional distinction and refinement, and a personality kindly, alert
- even to the point of restlessness - and instinct with pride of race.
The result is both a study of character and a work of art It is painted
with the utmost freedom and dexterity. The tumultuous crown of feathers
in the hat, the movement suggested in the pose of the figure, the quick
play of light and shade over the black silk cloak, the elegant and sensitive
hands, all contribute to an impression bordering on flurry. [p]
Yet in spite of this a certain nobility
and calm, deeper than momentary agitation, is the ultimate effect of the
composition. Not infrequently Sargent is criticized for opaqueness or leatheriness
in his paint, for a want of luminosity and charm in his colour; here there
is no trace of these defects. The delicate ivory white of the skin has
a quality of transparency, the liveliness of the black and the softness
of the rose-colour, introduced to give freshness to the scheme, are delightful.
All has been painted with a sure and fluent touch. [p]
If the spectator disregards the portrait
and considers solely the picture, he is at once struck by the beauty of
the design, its plastic structure, the crisp freshness of the colour, and
the black background on which the figure has been wrought. This has a quality
of range and mystery purely atmospheric, its depth appears illimitable.
. . (Charteris, pp. 175-176).
Sargent remained on good terms with
the family, and as a young lady Sybil Sassoon would play piano duets with
him and ride through the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. Sargent executed charcoal
drawings of Sybil in 1910 and of both Philip and Sybil in 1912. In August
1913, when Sybil married the Earl of Rocksavage, son and heir of the Marquess
of Cholmondeley, Sargent painted a portrait of her to mark the occasion
(the portrait still hangs at Houghton Hall, the Cholmondeley family home,
today). In the portrait she wears a cashmere shawl which Sargent had given
her. (Stansky p. 35)
He made a third charcoal sketch of
Sybil in 1920 and a second of Philip in 1921, and in January of that same
year Philip arranged for Sargent to make a charcoal sketch of the Prince
of Wales (later King Edward VIII, afterwards the Duke of Windsor) (Stanksy,
p. 99). In 1922 he painted a second portrait of Sybil, commissioned by
Philip, which was to hang at Philip's home in Park Lane, where the 1907
portrait of Lady Sassoon already graced the staircase. In the 1922 portrait,
Sybil wears a sixteenth-century style dress designed by Worth, London;
her own pearls as well as those of her mother; and a jeweled imperial eagle
given by Philip IV to Dona Maria of Austria (Philip Sassoon had purchased
the jewel). This portrait was exhibited in April 1922 at the Royal Academy.
The following year Sargent painted an oil portrait of Philip, which was
also to hang at Park Lane. (Stansky p. 144) At his country home, Port Lympne,
Philip also had a portrait of the prize fighter Jack Johnson by Sargent
(Stanksy p. 153)
In 1925 Sargent sketched Sybil's
daughter, Lady Aline Cholmondeley, in charcoal - it was the last drawing
he completed before his death (Stansky p. 35).
Philip died in 1939, leaving his
1923 oil portrait by Sargent to the Tate Gallery. The trustees accepted
his bequest; they declined, however, to accept a second bequest - the 1921
charcoal drawing of the Prince of Wales. Perhaps the scar left upon England
by the abdication crisis in 1936 was still too fresh in the minds of the
trustees. (Stansky p. 144)
Stansky's book also contains some
great information on Sargent's visits to the Western front during World
War I and some of the watercolours he painted there, as well as his large
work Gassed. (See pages 76-78.)
Note
1)
From: Anonymous Friend of the
JSS Gallery
Also wanted to pass along some information
on the Sassoon family. I think I had mentioned to you before that I had
recently purchased Peter Stansky's new book Sassoon: The Worlds of Philip
and Sybil (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2003). The book
is excellent - both well written and well-illustrated. There are numerous
references to Sargent throughout the book, so I tried to pull together
some of the various points into a cohesive history of Sargent's relationship
with the Sassoon family. Stansky also briefly quotes Evan Charteris' biography
of Sargent when discussing the 1907 portrait of Lady Aline Sassoon. I consulted
my copy of Charteris' biography and have provided a more lengthy quote
[above]. First, here is a list of all of the Sargent works which are illustrated
in the book.
Illustrations:
frontispiece - Portrait of Sir Philip
Sassoon (1923)
p. 20 - Portrait of Aline, Lady
Sassoon (1907)
p. 36 - Charcoal Sketch of Sybil
Sassoon (1910) - Charcoal Sketch of Sybil Sassoon (1912)
p. 37 - Portrait of Sybil Sassoon,
the Countess of Rocksavage (1913)
p. 78 - Ruined Cathedral of Arras
(1918)
p. 100 - Charcoal Sketch of H.R.H.
the Prince of Wales [The Royal Collection]
p. 142 - Portrait of the Countess
of Rocksavage (later the Marchioness of
Cholmondeley)(1922)
p. 146 - Charcoal Study of the Marchioness
of Cholmondeley and Paul Manship, 1923, which shows Manship executing a
sculpture of the Marchioness
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See the year in review 1907
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