Sargent on Location
The portraitist’s work comes to life through photographs and artifacts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The portraitist’s work comes to life through photographs and artifacts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Isabella Stewart Gardner and her husband, Jack, were introduced to John Singer Sargent by the novelist Henry James in October 1886. He took them to Sargent’s London studio to see his provocative portrait, Madame X, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sargent had painted the portrait to enhance his reputation but, as the museum notes,“at the Salon of 1884, the portrait received more ridicule than praise.”
Mrs. Gardner loved it and invited Sargent to visit her home in Boston to paint her portrait. Beginning in December 1887, Sargent struggled to capture his restless sitter. After the eighth attempt he was ready to give up but Mrs. Gardner is reported to have remarked “…as nine was Dante’s mystic number, they must make the ninth try a success.”
The successful finished work debuted at the nearby St. Botolph Club in Sargent’s first solo exhibition in America.the portrait raised eyebrows (a bit too much décolletage to begin with) and Jack Gardner never allowed it to leave their home again nor to be shown there while he was alive.after his death Mrs. Gardner placed it prominently in the Gothic Room where it remains today. Gardner and Sargent’s close friendship lasted for the remainder of their lives. In a wonderful numerological irony, Sargent died on what would have been Mrs. Gardner’s 85th birthday, April 14, 1925.
Jack Gardner was a successful financier. His wealth enabled Isabella to amass an extraordinary collection of art, and sections of Italian palazzos to assemble into a remarkable home on The Fenway around the corner from the Museum of Fine Arts.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has kept the museum and home alive in the 21st century just as Mrs. Gardner did in the 20th. Respecting her dictum that nothing be moved from where she put it, the museum built a complementary steel, glass and copper addition to the rear in 2012. It was designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. In 1992, the museum had established an artist in residence program “as part of an effort to recapture the vitality that was present during Isabella’s lifetime.” Mrs. Gardner had invited Sargent to be her artist in residence, setting up a studio in the Gothic Room where he painted five portraits. One of those portraits is the subject of the exhibition Sargent On Location: Gardner’s First Artist-in-residence, which continues through January 14. The portrait is Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and Her Daughter Rachel, 1903, on loan from the MFA. Mrs. Gardner and the actress, poet and singer were close friends and items from their correspondence, copies of Warren’s poetry and gifts to the collector are included in the exhibition. Christina Nielsen, the museum’s William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection and Exhibition Program, says,“being able to show the exquisite
portrait of Gretchen Osgood Warren in the room in which it was painted is very exciting for us and highlights Isabella’s role as a champion of the art of the past as well as of the art of her time.as part of the Close Up series, we also have the opportunity to showcase works of art, books, letters and photographs in our collection that illuminate the creative connections among a range of Boston luminaries in the first decade of the 20th century.”
The museum’s Norma Jean Calderwood Director, Peggy Fogelman, explains,“this exhibition and publication celebrates the public purpose of Isabella’s Museum and her support of the contemporary artists of her time— two themes that we continue to explore today through such programs as our artist residencies, which trace their roots to none other than John Singer Sargent himself. Just as in Sargent’s day, Isabella’s collection continues to inspire the artists of our own time.”
Photographs in the exhibition show Sargent at work on the portrait, Mrs. Warren ensconced in one of Mrs. Gardener’s elaborate chairs raised on a model stand, with Rachel standing beside her. Behind them are a Virgin and Child, 1425 to1450, from the workshop of Lorenzo Ghiberti and two Italian 17th-century painted and gilded wood Angel Candlesticks. The pose of mother and daughter emulates the pose of the Virgin and Child but is a bit less intimate. The exhibition offers the opportunity to examine the objects more closely when they might become lost in the room’s densely packed arrangements.