The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy

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As one of the most sought-after and prolific portraitists of international high society, American expatriate John Singer Sargent painted the cosmopolitan world to which he belonged with elegance and a bravura touch. Born to American parents residing in Italy, Sargent spent his early adult life in Paris, moving to London in the mid-1880s. The artist traveled frequently, and it was during these trips that he experimented most extensively with painting en plein air, or outdoors. Set in a sunlit garden in the central Italian town of Frascati, this charming double portrait depicts Sargent¡¯s friends and fellow artists Wilfrid and Jane Emmet de Glehn. The painting is filled with light, displaying Sargent¡¯s characteristically dazzling surface articulated with thick impasto and virtuoso brushwork. Jane described the work as a ¡°most amusing and killingly funny picture¡± in a letter to her sister Lydia. She continued ¡°I am all in white with a white painting blouse and a pale blue veil around my hat. I look rather like a pierrot, but have a rather worried expression as every painter should who isn¡¯t a perfect fool, says Sargent. Wilfrid is in short sleeves, very idle and good for nothing, and our heads come against the great ¡®panache¡¯ of the fountain.¡± Title The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy Creator John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925) Creator Lifespan 1846/1925 Date Created 1907 Physical Dimensions 71.4 ¡Á 56.5 cm (28 1/8 ¡Á 22 1/4 in.) Type Painting Media Oil on canvas Credit Line The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection, 1914.57 Artist John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925) Show more