John Singer SargentAmerican, 1856–1925Sketchbook: Figures and Animals
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Sketchbook: Figures and Animals” now? Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Cambridge, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Sketchbook with beige-cloth-covered cardboard covers; and pencil sleeve. Pages of cream wove paper. Sewn page block. The sketchbook is incomplete, with sixteen pages remaining. Eleven drawings. The pages are numbered in red-brown ink in the upper right corners. Many pages have been removed from the sketchbook and the page numbering apparently occurred after their removal. Missing are the page before page one, at least one after page three, two after page six, two after page 11, and one after page 12.
Contents: Portraits of several women, including Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) and Alice Louis-Guérin Helleu, and studies for the portrait of Dorothy (Dolly) Barnard (1889, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge); animal studies (apes, cats, and birds); plant study; shipboard scene.
Harvard Art Museums
Details
- Accession number
- 1937.7.26.1-16
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
In the life of John Singer Sargent
The whole life1887
“Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”: a triumph, bought by the Tate
Sargent's first major success at the Royal Academy comes in 1887 with the enthusiastic response to “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”, a large piece painted on site of two young girls lighting lanterns in an English garden in Broadway in the Cotswolds; it is immediately purchased by the Tate Gallery.
1887–1888
His first solo exhibition in Boston
In Boston Sargent is honoured with his first solo exhibition, which presents 22 of his paintings; there he becomes friends with the painter Dennis Miller Bunker.
1887–1888
His first professional trip to New York and Boston
His first trip to New York and Boston as a professional artist produces over twenty important commissions, among them portraits of the Boston art patron Isabella Stewart Gardner and of Mrs. Adrian Iselin, wife of a New York businessman.
summer 1888
Dennis Miller Bunker comes to paint with him outdoors
In the summer of 1888 Dennis Miller Bunker travels to England to paint with Sargent en plein air; he is the subject of Sargent's 1888 painting “Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot”.
c. 1890
Elected to the Royal Academy
Sargent is elected an associate of the Royal Academy and is made a full member three years later.
1890s
Fourteen portrait commissions a year
In the 1890s Sargent averages fourteen portrait commissions per year, among them the genteel “Lady Agnew of Lochnaw” (1892) and the equally well received “Mrs. Hugh Hammersley” (1892); as a portrait painter in the grand manner he is referred to as “the Van Dyck of our times”.
