152.4 x 102.55 cm (60 x 40 3/8 in.)
Oil on canvas

Inscriptions: Lower left: John S. Sargent 1903

Classification: Paintings

On view in the: Susan Morse Hilles Gallery (American Impressionism)

Born in Italy to American parents, Sargent became a highly successful portrait painter on both sides of the Atlantic. This portrait was painted in Boston at Fenway Court, which had just opened as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and where the artist had a temporary studio. The portrait's imposing size, the Renaissance furniture, and Mrs. Warren's formal pose evoke aristocratic portraits of the past. At the same time, Sargent's style is very modern. He paints with freedom and confidence--notice the thick slash of white pigment that highlights the chair arm. Mrs. Warren, who wore at Sargent's insistence a borrowed pink dress, did not like the portrait, feeling that it focused on her social position and ignored her serious interest in poetry and the performing arts.

This text has been adapted from G. Shallcross, MFA: A Guide to the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 2005), available at http://www.mfashop.com/mfa-publications

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gift of Mrs. Rachel Warren Barton and Emily L. Ainsley Fund, 1964
Accession number: 64.693

Provenance/Ownership History: The artist; to Fiske Warren, Brookline, Mass., 1903; to Mrs. Fiske Warren, Boston, the sitter, 1938; to Mrs. Rachel Warren Barton (the other sitter) and Hamilton Warren, her children, 1961; to MFA, 1964, gift of Mrs. Rachel Warren Barton and purchase.

This object is included in the following Selected Tour(s):

• American Paintings
• MFA Images: Motherhood