1882, John Singer Sargent, A Venetian Woman -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: To personify the seductive charms of Venice, John Singer Sargent created a life-size portrait of a beadworker. This model holds a bundle of long, thin blue glass canes that are soon to be cut and polished into beads, one of Venice’s chief exports in the nineteenth century and a staple of trade in Asia, Africa, and with Native communities in North America. Cradling her cluster of canes, she poses as a cernitrice, a sorter who groups them by color. Like her native city, she is proud and alluring, with the glass canes acknowledging the critical role of Murano within Venice’s identity, economy, and future.
1882, John Singer Sargent, A Venetian Woman -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: To personify the seductive charms of Venice, John Singer Sargent created a life-size portrait of a beadworker. This model holds a bundle of long, thin blue glass canes that are soon to be cut and polished into beads, one of Venice’s chief exports in the nineteenth century and a staple of trade in Asia, Africa, and with Native communities in North America. Cradling her cluster of canes, she poses as a cernitrice, a sorter who groups them by color. Like her native city, she is proud and alluring, with the glass canes acknowledging the critical role of Murano within Venice’s identity, economy, and future.