(Title by Natasha)

(Title by Natasha)

(Andrea del Sarto in Juxtaposition)

(Jean-Francois Millet in Juxtaposition)

(picture and essay)

The family spends the summer in the Tyrol.

By October they are in Munich. With strong plans to get John a formal education and they move to Dresden where John studies Latin, Greek, mathematics, geography, history and German in preparation for the entrance exams for Das Gymnasium zum Heilige Kreuz. 

While there he does some copy work in the Albertina. They all winter in Dresden.
(Germany)

1872                          (16 years old)
Year In Context

The family, not accustom to harsh winters, finds Emily seriously ill. By early spring they abruptly end John's education and travel to Berlin, then Leipzig, Carrlsbad, Munich and Auchensee and possibly on to visit Venice.

September they are back in Florence at two apartments in the Villino Torrigiani, 115 via de Serragli. Sometime during this month John and Emily spend ten days in Bologna with Vernon Lee. There they engage in discussions about art and aesthetics.

1873                              (17 years old)
Year In Context

May through July, Mrs. Sargent and the children are in Venice while Dr. Sargent travels to America.

By July, Dr. Sargent meets the family in Pontresina, Switzerland, and then they all travel to the Alps.

October -- they are in Florence and live in a new apartment at 15 via Magneta. John enrolls in the Accademia delle Belle Arti, but by December it closes for lack of funds. He meets the American artists Walter Launt Palmer, Edwin White, and Frank Flower, the English artists Edward Clifford and Heath Wilson. Palmer writes in a diary "He is but 17 & had done a most remarkable amount of work very little oil".

1874                              (18 years old)
Year In Context

John Singer Sargent 
Photograph 1874

March: the Accademia in Florence reopens. John is back in classes but finds it unsatisfactory and is frustrated. On the 22nd he writes to Mrs. Austin (paints her daughter Mary Turner Austin 1878) about getting photographs of pictures he had seen in Dresden and his admiration for the painters Titian, Tintoretto, and Michelangelo. In April he tells of the families intention to to go to Paris to look for an atelier for him.

They arrive in Paris on May 16th but find most of the Master ateliers already full.

On May 26, John and his father visit Carolus-Duran's atelier and find space available. Carolus-Duran looks at John's portfolio and agrees to take him on. In a span of little over a week John had made the decision as to which artist to study under. In part, the plan is to learn enough to pass the very difficult examinations for admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, though passage in the first year is unlikely. Dr. Sargent leaves John to his studies -- Sargent is on his own for the first time. The American James Carroll Beckwith is also at the atelier and they become good friends. Within three weeks at the atelier Sargent paints his first head.

On July 3rd, the atelier closes for the summer and Sargent travels to Caen to meet his family, then together on to Rouen, and Benzeval.
 
 

By September he's back in Paris with his family and prepares for the concours des places at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (the exams are held twice annually -- October and March -- for students wanting to continue, and non-students wanting to join -- these exams are in perspective and anatomy, ornament drawing and life drawing). The exams take place between September 26 and October 16. He lives with his family at 52, rue Abbatrice.

October, he meets the American artist Julian Alden Weir and works at his friend James Carroll Beckwith's studio and also Leon Bonnat's studio.

On October 19, Carolus-Duran's atelier resumes. 

October 27th,  the "test" results are announced and John passes the concours  placing 37th out of 162 entrants. He is accepted into the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. A high honor for a foreigner (the previous year only two foreigners got in out of 60 that tried) and for a first-time exam student -- an amazing distinction. He is the only student from Duran's atelier to pass that autumn.

Sargent's work routine includes a full day at Carolus's atelier, then as an Ecole des Beaux-Arts student, two hours in the evening at the coveted Monsieur Adolphe Yvon's life classes, then two more hours at the studio of Leon Bonnat. 

In short order, Sargent's achievements begin to outstrip his colleagues who look on with amazement.

Colleagues during this period include James Carroll Beckwith, Will H. Low, R.A.M. Stevenson, C.M. Newton, John Tracey, Stephen Parker Hills, Paul Batifaud-Vaur, Robert C. Hinckley and occasionally the law student Robert Louis Stevenson from Scotland (before he became a novelist).
 

January, each year Carolus-Duran has an annual dinner with his students, after which he takes Sargent and two other students (Parker Hills and Robert Hinckley) on a painting trip to Nice.

March, Sargent sits again for the concours of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and on the 16th, passes -- this time placing 39th. He continues his studies at the Ecole and Duran's atelier, although less time actually at the atelier and more and more at his friend Beckwith's studio.

(Most of the paintings that survive this period are those done in plein air. Very little studio work survives since it's common practice to paint, then scrape the canvas, then paint again to save money as was described by R.A.M. Stevenson)

June, the atelier closes for summer, he joins his family in Saint-Enogot, near Dinard, Brittany and paints sketches that would lead to the paintings Oyster Gatherers (1878).

August, Sargent and Beckwith go in together and share a rented studio at 73, Notre Dame de Champs.

October, he again passes the concours and Carolus-Duran re-opens the atelier. Sargent is living at Mme Darode's boarding house, 19 rue de l'Odeon.

Beckwith joins him and his family for Christmas at Saint Malo.
 

March, he passes the concours. Writes to Fanny Watts "the question ought to be no longer merely to get in, but to get in high, which makes it more interesting." (March 10, 76 letter to Watts quoted in Olson p. 50)

In April he visits Claude Monet exhibition at the Durand-Ruel gallery, Paris. He may have met Monet then. Monet himself thought they met during this exhibition. 

May 13 -- in order to retain his United States citizenship he visits the States with his mother and sister Emily. On the trip over he makes sketches of life ont he boat.

Once he's there he visits the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. At the exhibition he sees Winslow Homer's paintings among others. He meets his Newbold and Sargent cousins. In Newport, they are guest of Admiral Case and John paints Case's son-in-law Charles Deering (n/a).

Then the Sargent travels to Canada -- Montreal and Niagara Falls.

September, Sargent travels (with an unidentified artist friend from Paris) to Chicago for a few days then back to Philadelphia.

October 4th, they sets sail for Liverpool, England and by November  he returns to Paris.  He continues his studies with the Ecole and Carolus-Duran. 

He may have met Auguste Rodin and Monet during this period as well as painters Albert Basnard and Albert Belleroche.