- Gallery Text
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Sargent was one of the leading portraitists in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Born in Florence to expatriate parents, he spent his career shuttling between the major American and European capitals. He painted this penetrating portrait of the Boston banker, philanthropist, and Civil War veteran Henry Lee Higginson while visiting the United States to install his mural cycle at the Boston Public Library.
In 1899, Higginson donated funds to build the Harvard Union (now the Barker Center), and the portrait was commissioned to hang in this new building. Cast in somber tones reminiscent of the Old Masters, the portrait emphasizes Higginson’s military service. The sitter’s Civil War cavalry cloak is spread across his lap, and a battle scar is visible on his right cheek.
- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- H189
- People
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John Singer Sargent, American (Florence, Italy 1856 - 1925 London, England)
Henry Lee Higginson (1834 - 1919)
- Title
- Henry Lee Higginson (1834-1919)
- Other Titles
- Former Title: Major Henry Higginson
- Classification
- Paintings
- Work Type
- painting
- Date
- 1903
- Places
- Creation Place: North America, United States, Massachusetts, Boston
- Culture
- American
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/300057
- Location
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Level 2, Room 2100, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Centuries of Tradition, Changing Times: Art for an Uncertain Age
View this object's location on our interactive map - Physical Descriptions
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- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 246.1 x 153.7 cm (96 7/8 x 60 1/2 in.)
framed: 277.5 x 185.7 x 17.8 cm (109 1/4 x 73 1/8 x 7 in.) - Inscriptions and Marks
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- Signed: l.l.: John S. Sargent 1903
- label: bottom edge of frame, brass, inscription: Portrait of/MAJOR HENRY LEE HIGGINSON/Fellow of Harvard College 1893-1919,/painted by John Singer Sargent/at the request and as the gift of/many students of the College/that it might hang in the Harvard Union,/given and dedicated in 1901 by Major Higginson.
- Provenance
- Student subscription to the Harvard Union, gift; to Harvard University, 1903
- Acquisition and Rights
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- Credit Line
- Harvard University Portrait Collection, Gift by student subscription to the Harvard Union, 1903
- Object Number
- H189
- Division
- European and American Art
- Contact
- am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Publication History
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Royal Cortissoz, "John S. Sargent", Scribner's Magazine (November 1903), vol. XXIV, no. 5, pp. 514-532, pp. 514-532
Charles H. Caffin, "John S. Sargent: The Greatest Contemporary Portrait Painter", The World's Work 7 (November 1903), pp. 4099-4116, repr. (n.p.)
[Unidentified article], The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, December 1903), vol. XII, p. 213
Mrs. Alice Christiana (Thompson) Meynell, The Work of John S. Sargent, R. A., W. Heinemann, Ltd/C. Scribner's Sons (London, England and New York, NY, 1903), repr. full page, b/w [unpaginated]
Richard Watson Gilder, Letters of Richard Watson Gilder, ed. Rosamond Gilder, Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston and New York, 1916), p. 354-355
Bliss Perry, Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson, Atlantic Monthly Press (Boston, MA, 1921), pp. 358-359, 385, 420, frontispiece
Forbes Watson, "John Singer Sargent", The Arts, Hamilton Easter Field (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1924), V (March), pp. 140, 149, ill. p. 140
Leila Mechlin, "The Sargent Exhibition: Grand Central Art Galleries New York", The American Magazine of Art (April 1924), vol. XV, no. 4, pp. 168-190, p. 170, ill. p. 176
Nathaniel Pousette-Dart, John Singer Sargent, Frederick A. Stokes Company (New York, 1924), ill. viii
Retrospective Exhibition of Important Works by John Singer Sargent, exh. cat., Grand Central Art Galleries (New York, NY, 1924), repr. p. 24
A Catalogue of the Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late John Singer Sargent, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1925), no. 84, repr.
William Howe Downes, John S. Sargent, His Life and Work, Little, Brown & Company (Boston, MA, 1925), pp. 206-207, ill. opp. p. 240
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, A Catalogue of the Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late John Singer Sargent (Boston, 1926), no. 86, repr.
Memorial Exhibition of the Work of John Singer Sargent, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY, 1926), no. 44, repr.
Evan Charteris, John Sargent, Charles Scribner's Sons (New York, NY, 1927), p. 270
Mary Caroline Crawford, Famous Families of Old New England, Little, Brown & Company (Boston, MA, 1929)
Charles Moore, The Life and Times of Charles Follen McKim, Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston, MA, 1929), pp. 287-288
Laura M. Huntsinger, Harvard Portraits: A Catalogue of Portrait Paintings at Harvard University, ed. Alan Burroughs, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), p. 72, ill. p. 71
F. O. Matthiessen and Kenneth B. Murdoch, The Notebooks of Henry James, Oxford University Press (UK) (New York, NY, 1947), pp. 315, 317, 323
Charles Merrill Mount, John Singer Sargent: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Company (New York, NY, 1955), pp. 237, 254-56, 394, 437
David McKibbin, Sargent's Boston, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1956), cat. no. 35, p. 69; p. 44, repr. in b/w fig. 26
Henry James, The American Scene (Bloomington, IN, 1968 (1907))
Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent: Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors, Harper & Row (New York, NY and London, England, 1970), Pl. 86
Adeline R. Tintner, "Sargent in the Fiction of Henry James", Apollo (August 1975), pp. 128-32, fig. 8, p. 132
Janet Baker-Carr, "Vita: Henry Lee Higginson", Harvard Magazine (Cambridge, MA, November 1977 - December 1977), p. 45, p. 45
John Singer Sargent, His Own Work, exh. cat., Coe Kerr Gallery, Inc. (New York, NY, 1980), in checklist, unpaginated
Henry B. Adams, The Letters of Henry Adams, ed. J. C. Levenson, Eleanor Pearre Abbot, and Jayne N. Samuels, Belknap Press (Cambridge, MA, 1982 - 1988), pp. 473, 479, 495-496
Carol Troyen and Pamela S. Tabbaa, The Great Boston Collectors: Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1984), fig. 5
Gary A. Reynolds, "Sargent and the Grand Manner Portrait", The Magazine Antiques, Straight Enterprises (New York, November 1986), vol 130, pp. 982-83, pp. 982-983, fig. 2
Trevor J. Fairbrother, John Singer Sargent and America, Garland Publishing, Inc. (New York, NY, 1986), pp. 290-294, fig. 76
Stanley Olson, John Singer Sargent: His Portrait, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY, 1986), p. 226
Trevor J. Fairbrother, Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., William L. Vance, and Erica E. Hirshler, The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age, 1870-1930, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1986), no. 4, repr.
Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent, exh. cat., Tate Gallery Publishing Limited (London, England, 1998), cat. no. 62, pp. 162 - 164, repr. in color
Carol Troyen, "Sargent and Major", Harvard Magazine (1999), May-June, p. 74
Jane Turner, The Encyclopedia of American Art before 1914, Macmillan Publishers Limited (London, England, 2000), p. 450
Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: The Later Portraits, Yale University Press (New Haven CT and London England, 2003), no. 448, repr.
John T. Bethell, Richard M. Hunt, and Robert Shenton, Harvard A to Z, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 2004), p. 277
Warren Adelson, William H. Gerdts, and Elaine Kilmurray, Sargent's Venice, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven and London, 2006), p. 158, fig. 161
Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 322-23, cat. 341, ill. p. 323
Bernard Barryte, ed., Rodin and America: Influence and Adaptation, 1876-1936, exh. cat., Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts (Stanford, CA, 2011), pp. 320-321, fig. 215
Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery (London, 2015), p. 175, repr. p. 176 as fig. 22
Rebecca Zurier, Thinking Like a Painter: Method and Manhood in Three Works by Thomas Eakins, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2015), pp. 64-76, pp. 71-73, repr. p. 72, fig. 5
Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal, exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery and The Morgan Library & Museum (New York, 2019), p. 121
- Exhibition History
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Retrospective Exhibition of Important Works of John Singer Sargent, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, 02/01/1924 - 03/31/1924
John Singer Sargent Memorial Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 10/01/1925 - 11/30/1925
Memorial Exhibition of Works by John Singer Sargent, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 01/04/1926 - 02/14/1926
(Anniversary Celebration), Symphony Hall, Boston, 12/10/1930 - 01/04/1931
The American Spirit in Portraiture, 1675 - 1900, Fogg Art Museum, 01/19/1951 - 02/24/1951
Sargent's Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 01/03/1956 - 02/07/1956
The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age, 1870-1930, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 06/11/1986 - 09/14/1986
John Singer Sargent, Tate Britain, London, 10/15/1998 - 01/17/1999
32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050
- Subjects and Contexts
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Google Art Project
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This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu