Musée No:379.057
Regular price £25.00Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler
Artist: John Singer Sargent
Date: 1893
John Singer Sargent, 1856 - 1925, was an American expatriate artist considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He painted nearly a thousand oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolours, as well as sketches and charcoal drawings. His works show worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.
Sargent's early enthusiasm was for landscapes, as shown by his numerous sketches of mountains, seascapes, and buildings. In 1879 he was a part of Carolus-Duran’s atelier in Paris where he painted a portrait of his teacher to much acclaim. Carolus-Duran's expertise in portraiture finally influenced Sargent in that direction. His best portraits reveal the individuality and personality of the sitters; his most ardent admirers think he is matched in this only by Velázquez.
The Sitter : According to Sargent, twenty-six-year old Elizabeth Chanler (Mrs John Jay Chapman) had “the face of the Madonna and the eyes of a child.” She was heiress to the Astor and Stuyvesant families and an American socialite during the Gilded Age. This portrait painted whilst she was visiting London for her brother's wedding in 1893, shows a beautiful woman who has learned to be strong. Her mother died when she was still young, leaving her to help care for seven younger brothers and sisters. Apparently a "beautiful and tough-minded woman who even in the nursery was known as 'Queen Bess' by her siblings," .
