Left: my tracing. Right: John Singer Sargent, Violet Sargent, c. 1883, graphite on off-white wove paper, 18 13/16 × 13 15/16 in. (47.8 × 35.4 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art — public domain.
Sargent drew it around 1883, alongside a watercolor of the same subject from about the same date — same haircut, same steady, serious expression, full length instead of just the head. This drawing is graphite, committed lines, his younger sister looking straight back at him — he was twenty-seven, she was thirteen. The Met has held the drawing since 1950, when Violet herself, by then Mrs. Francis Ormond, gave the museum hundreds of her brother’s works. This one never had a client.
John Singer Sargent, Violet Sargent, c. 1883, watercolour and pencil on paper, 45.1 × 21.6 cm — private collection. Public domain.
I traced this on the same sheet as the two
Tonnis “Female Warrior” pieces
and wasn’t sure at first which post it belonged in.
I felt there was power in their gazes that linked them together,
but as Sargent for me this drawing stands on its own.
With this drawing and my tracing, I meant especially to focus on just the basics of the eyes and jawline — I got something useful out of it. He understood the lines of her face and eyes at such an early age, but also her power as an entity, which is more important to me. I suspect Violet liked this drawing, and kept it for that reason. It’s not market pricing but a drawing from brother to sister.
Image credits. John Singer Sargent died in 1925 — public domain by any measure (life + 70 and beyond). Violet Sargent is held in The Met’s American Wing, New York (accession 50.130.87), which has designated this image public domain under its Open Access policy.
Links
- Violet Sargent (drawing) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art — full-resolution Open Access image and the 1950 Ormond gift provenance
- Violet Sargent (watercolor) — Wikimedia Commons — the companion piece discussed above, still in a private collection
- John Singer Sargent — Wikipedia