In England he paints his last oil portrait in January -- Grace Elvina.

He works on the stairway decorations in his Fulham studio completing them by March 22nd.




" . . .the spring of 1925 found [John and his sister Emily] in London, preparing to sail together on Saturday, the 18th of April, for Boston.

"The dome was long since finished, and the last decorations for the staircase leading to it were either safely in Boston or on the water. Two portraits, Lady Curzon and Mr. George Macmillan [n/a], had been sent to the Royal Academy, and on Tuesday, the 14th, Sargent made a portrait drawing of Princess Mary. 

"His work was done.

"The next day his packing was to begin, a really dreadful undertaking, for he did it himself with thought and care, doing and undoing, dreading and hating it, and enjoying his victories over the pure cussedness of inanimate objects. He dined with his sisters, who had gathered together some of their intimates for a farewell. He was in high spirits, 'genial and wonderful,' one of his guest wrote, 'never in a better form, and waving good night to us as he walked away from Emily's.' A shower came on, and Mr. Nelson-Ward overtook him in a taxi and made him drive the short distance to Trite Street. 'Au revoir in six months,' said Sargent at the door. His servants heard him moving about for a while; after a little the house fell quiet.

"And then the end came, 'on a midnight without pain,' we may believe. In the morning he was found, sitting up on his pillows, reading lamp still burning, an open volume of Voltaire fallen from his hand. Death had found him -- conscious, active, ready; calmly he answered the summons and was gone from us for ever."
(Mary Newbold Patterson Hale, The world Today, November 1927)

On April 15th, 1925, John Singer Sargent died of degenerative heart disease, three months after his 69th birthday.

April 18th, his body is taken by special train from Paddington Station to Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, twenty miles from London. It is a private burial. On his tombstone is inscribed “Laborare Est Orare” -- Labor is prayer. 

On April 24th a memorial service is held at Westminster Abbey.

From the cudgeling of Viollet's husband Ormond that Sargent's work could not get more valuable, Sargent's studio contents are put up for action by Christie's in London on July 24th and 27th. The sale realized 175,000 ponds (Olson estimates over 2,400,000 pounds in 1980's equivalent). Included in the sale, but above and beyond Sargent's own work were an amazing collection of other artist's work he admired and owned, such as Abbey, Brabazon, de Glehn, Helleu, John Parsons, Rodin, Tiepolo, Besnard, Boldini, Carolus-Duran, Corot, MacEvoy, Lavery, Mancini, Monet, Pryde, Steer, and Annie Swynnertons.

Shocked at the high prices that his personal work is going for, his sisters halt the auction and try to buy back his work. Not needing the money, they take out ads in Europe and the United States advertising that any museum can have them donated so that all the public can see and own them.

On November 3rd, the stairwell decorations are unveiled at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with a memorial service.

1926

A Memorial exhibition is held at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and at the Royal Academy, London. Within the Memorial catalogue is a list of thirty decorations and degrees given to Sargent in America, Belgium, Germany, France, and England.