John Singer SargentAmerican, 1856–1925Street Scene - Cairo
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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 painting
Confident and loose brushwork in muted tones indicates an inclined path, with white-walled dwellings on either side and locals gathered outdoors in the silvery light of dusk. One of a large group of observational studies of Cairo that Sargent made during the winter of 1890–91, this scene may represent a street near the Sulayman Pasha al-Khadim Mosque, located in the Cairo Citadel atop Mount Mokattam.
Sargent traveled to Egypt to gather ideas after accepting a commission from architects Charles McKim and Stanford White to decorate the vaulted, third-floor room of the new central Boston Public Library (the murals are now known as the Triumph of Religion).
Stray green traces of pigment and a horizontal impression in the lower third of the painting suggest that the work may have been pressed against another canvas in travel while still wet.
Harvard Art Museums
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1937.211
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Meanwhile, in the life of John Singer Sargent
The whole lifec. 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”.
1893
Nine portraits at the Chicago World's Fair
In 1893 Sargent exhibits nine of his portraits in the Palace of Fine Arts at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
