front cover Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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front cover Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1937.7.32.1-18
People
John Singer Sargent, American (Florence, Italy 1856 - 1925 London, England)
Title
Sketchbook: Studies for the Boston Public Library Mural "The Triumph of Religion": "Frieze of Prophets"
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
sketchbook
Date
1890-1895
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/307744

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Limp blue cloth-covered cardboard covers and blue leather spine; eighteen pages of off-white wove paper
Dimensions
25.3 x 36.7 x 0.9 cm (9 15/16 x 14 7/16 x 3/8 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: back pastedown, graphite: big man-- brown beard / Gaetano Pisani 21 Eyre St. [Hill?] W. C. / middle panel-- inches [illeg.] plinth

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
1937.7.32.1-18
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
Sketchbook with limp, blue-cloth-covered cardboard covers, and blue leather spine. Pages of off-white wove paper. Sewn page block. Sketchbook is incomplete, with eighteen pages remaining. Thirty-three drawings. The pages are numbered in red-brown ink in the upper right corner.

Contents: Overall compositional studies and individual figure studies for the "Frieze of the Prophets" at the Boston Public Library, including the prophets Joel, Elijah, Obadiah, and Moses; a portrait sketch of a woman tentatively identified as Mrs. Kate Moore and a portrait sketch of an unidentified woman; a sketch of a seated man and one of a carriage with coachmen (identified by McKibbin as "Queen Victoria caricatured in state carriage"). Also a comical sketch and an anamorphic skull (cf. 1937.7.11, fol. 32)Back pastedown has comical sketch and anamorphic skull drawn in graphite, along with a row of calculations.

Publication History

  • Edward J. Nygren, John Singer Sargent: Drawings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (Washington, D.C, 1983), p. 60, under no. 35
  • Derrick Randall Cartwright, "Reading Rooms: Interpreting the American Public Library Mural" (Ph.D Diss., University of Michigan, 1994), Unpublished, p. 136, note 102
  • Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent, exh. cat., Tate Gallery Publishing Limited (London, England, 1998), p. 191, under no. 80
  • 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, pp. 32-33
  • Under Cover: Artists' Sketchbooks, website, Harvard University Art Museums, 2006, www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/sketchbooks

Exhibition History

  • Sargent in the Studio: Drawings, Sketchbooks, and Oil Sketches, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 06/10/1999 - 09/26/1999
  • Under Cover: Artists' Sketchbooks, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 08/01/2006 - 10/22/2006

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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