1888, John Singer Sargent, Mrs. Richard H. Derby -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label: Under the influence of his teacher, the French master Carolus-Duran, Sargent developed a distinctive talent for grand manner portraiture, which quickly became his bread and butter. Mrs. Richard H. Derby was painted just one year after the artist's professional debut in the United States, yet already his influence was firmly established. With his broad and fluid brush and quick dashes of ornamental detail, Sargent signaled the principal importance of Mrs. Derby's superficial identity: her wealth, her decorum, her restraint. The elite veneer guaranteed Sargent's success among a fashionable coterie of New York patrons. The portrait reputedly took eighteen sittings in Sargent's Washington Square studio.
1888, John Singer Sargent, Mrs. Richard H. Derby -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label: Under the influence of his teacher, the French master Carolus-Duran, Sargent developed a distinctive talent for grand manner portraiture, which quickly became his bread and butter. Mrs. Richard H. Derby was painted just one year after the artist's professional debut in the United States, yet already his influence was firmly established. With his broad and fluid brush and quick dashes of ornamental detail, Sargent signaled the principal importance of Mrs. Derby's superficial identity: her wealth, her decorum, her restraint. The elite veneer guaranteed Sargent's success among a fashionable coterie of New York patrons. The portrait reputedly took eighteen sittings in Sargent's Washington Square studio.