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35. John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)

Two-sided drawing with sketches after Jacopo Tintoretto's paintings "The Worship of the Golden Calf" (recto) and "The Liberation of the Slaves by St. Mark" (verso).
pencil on paper, unsigned, unframed.
8-1/8" x 5-1/8" paper size, once mounted at the corners to a grey sheet of paper (11-1/4" x 8-1/2") also sold with this lot.

Adhered to the grey paper is a small handwritten note, in ink, bearing the following inscription: "Sketch by John S. Sargent, illustrating figures from the Worship of the Golden Calf, by Tintoretto in Venice: made in Paris in 1874 - Carroll Beckwith." Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917), an American painter, was Sargent's roommate in Paris during the 1870s while they trained in the atelier of Emile Carolus-Duran.

5,000/7,000     SOLD: $5,060.00

John Singer Sargent ranks among the most celebrated American artists, revered for his portraiture as well as his astonishing command of watercolor. Ironically, however, he spent only a very small portion of his life in the United States, having been born in Florence to American parents, and raised in Europe. He did not visit the United States until he was 20.

Sargent was a precocious talent, and had early exposure to the great monuments of Western art. The present drawing is a two-sided sketch Sargent produced when he was only 17, just as he settled in Paris to pursue art training under Carolus-Duran. The figures are based upon two different paintings (both located in Venice) by the Venetian Renaissance master, Tintoretto. The recto shows three figures derived from the lower left corner of Tintoretto's "The Worship of the Golden Calf" in Santa Maria dell'Orto, and the verso shows figures derived from the far left side of Tintoretto's celebrated "Liberation of the Slaves by St. Mark" of 1548 in the Venice Academy.

According to the handwritten inscription signed by Sargent's roommate Carroll Beckwith which accompanies this drawing, John Singer Sargent made these sketches in Paris (although he had visited Venice before 1874). The specificity of the poses suggests that Sargent based the sketches upon reproductions of the paintings rather than drawing them from memory. None of the figures he chose to sketch after Tintoretto are prominently located in Tintoretto's compositions. They are auxillary figures, but nonetheless key elements resolving the corner areas of the large designs. Qualities shared by the poses include an elegant elongation, movement suggested by drapery, contrapposto, and didactic gesture. Interestingly, Sargent's attraction to this type of imagery, where languid gestures in the limbs carry great theatrical impact, found its fullest expression during the late 1870s in the artist's masterpieces of Spanish dancers.

Provenance:
Carroll Beckwith;
Dr. Holt, a British surgeon, until circa 1970;
Private collection, United States (gift from descendants of Dr. Holt).

Condition: The verso drawing is upside down in relationship to the recto drawing as though the paper were flipped in a pad during execution. The ivory-colored paper, a hard sketching stock, is in excellent condition and strong. The exposed recto has yellowed slightly, while the verso, except of the adhesive spots, is in near pristine condition. There are expected light surface soil and some pinpoint foxing on the recto, predominately in the top third, which is just visible on the verso. At the four corners of the verso are the remains of the glue (probably muscillage) and paper residue from the tip-gluing to the originally grey-blue backing paper.