Olietta Tommasini

Details

JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856-1925)
Olietta Tommasini
signed, dated and inscribed 'To my friend Madame Tommasini/John S. Sargent Simplon 1911' (upper edge)
watercolor and pencil on paper
15 x 14 in. (38.1 x 35.6 cm.)
Executed in Switzerland in 1911

Provenance

Gladys Tommasini.
Olietta Tommasini (gift from the above).
Gladys Tommasini.
Dante E. Leland.
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York (1928).
P.A.B. Widener, Philadelphia (1928).
Ella Anne Widener, Pennsylvania (by descent from the above).
Cortwright Wetherill (by descent from the above); sale, Sotheby's, New York, 3 December 1987, lot 183.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

A. Stokes, "John Singer Sargent, R.A. R.W.S." in The Old Water-Colour Society's Club 1925-1926, London, 1926, vol. III, p. 55.
(possibly) M. Birnbaum, John Singer Sargent: A Conversation Piece, New York, 1941, pp. 13-14.
D. McKibbin, Sargent's Boston, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1956, p. 126.
R. Ormond and E. Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: The Later Portraits, New Haven, 2003, vol. III, pp. 225-226 and 304, no. 564 (illustrated).
R. Ormond and E. Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1908-1913, New Haven, 2014, vol. VIII, p. 116, fig. 52 (illustrated).

Conditions of sale

Presentado por

Jakob Angner Associate Vice President, Specialist, Head of Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper Sale

jangner@christies.com +1 332 287 4114

Ensayo del lote

The present work depicts Olietta Tommasini, daughter of Hugo and Gladys Tommalsini, guests that Sargent encountered on multiple occasions upon his stays at the Bellevue Hotel on the Simplon Pass in Switzerland. Fellow painter Adrian Stokes recounted Sargent's creation of the present work: "One day, when passing along the road, he saw a lovely blonde child—daughter of one of the hotel guests—against the dark background of an open shed. He sent at once for his watercolours, and she sat for him. The child, though delicacy itself, had a small clearly cut and very characteristic nostril. Sargent began with that nostril! He felt that all depended on its accurate rendering; so the rest was developed round it." (A. Stokes, "John Singer Sargent, R.A. R.W.S.," in R. Davies, ed., The Old Water-Colour Society's Club 1925-1926, London, 1926, vol. III, p. 55)

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