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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1937.10
People
John Singer Sargent, American (Florence, Italy 1856 - 1925 London, England)
Title
Album of Ornamental Detail: Drawings, Stencils and Photographs
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
album
Date
19th-20th century
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/307689

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Album with black cloth-covered cardboard covers
Dimensions
54.7 x 71.5 x 3.2 cm (21 9/16 x 28 1/8 x 1 1/4 in.)
page: 53.2 x 67.5 cm (20 15/16 x 26 9/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • stamp: back pastedown, black ink, stamped: PARKINS & COTTO OXFORD ST W.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
To the artist's sisters, Violet (Mrs. Francis) Ormond and Emily Sargent, at his death, 1925; gift of Mrs. Ormond to the Fogg Art Museum, 1937.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond
Accession Year
1937
Object Number
1937.10
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
Album with black-cloth-covered cardboard covers; leather-covered spine and corners. White silked paper (treated with clay to resemble silk) endpapers. Twenty-seven pages of off-white cardboard.

Contents: Commercial photographs printed by Spanish companies of the interior of the Alhambra, with details of tile work; ornamental designs based on and related to the designs at the Alhambra; designs for stencils, actual stencils cut from cardboard, and designs printed on textured paper from a stencil; sketches of fountains from South Kensington Gardens and Rouen as well as capitals, lintels, pedestals, and other architectural details from Italy and Granada. A section of the second page has been cut away, perhaps so that a drawing on tracing paper affixed to that page could be laid over a drawing mounted on the next.It is not clear who assembled this album, but it may have been arranged by the artist as a source book of decorative motifs and ornament used in working out aspects of the Boston Public Library project.

Publication History

  • Miriam Stewart and Kerry Schauber, "Catalogue of Sketchbooks and Albums by John Singer Sargent at the Fogg Art Museum", Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin (Cambridge, MA, Fall 1999 - Winter 2000), vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 16-38, p. 36
  • Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1874-1882, Yale University Press (New Haven and London, 2006), p. 228
  • Sarah Cash, Elaine Kilmurray, and Richard Ormond, Sargent & Spain, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC, 2022), pp. 11, 233 note 2

Exhibition History

  • Sargent in the Studio: Drawings, Sketchbooks, and Oil Sketches, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 06/10/1999 - 09/26/1999

Related Works

Verification Level

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