1879, John Singer Sargent, "Las Meninas," after Velázquez -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: Sargent's teacher Carolus-Duran famously urged his students: "Velázquez, Velázquez, Velázquez, relentlessly study Velázquez!" When Sargent finished his formal training in Paris, he dutifully traveled to Madrid and registered as a copyist at the Prado Museum, the greatest repository of the Spanish painter's work in the world. Between mid-October and mid-November 1879, Sargent copied at least nine paintings by Diego Velázquez, including the masterpiece Las Meninas (1656), a portrait of Infanta Margarita Teresa, the young daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, surrounded by her attendants. This copy reveals Sargent's attention to Velázquez's spatial and compositional construction, tonalities, chiaroscuro, and technique. It also reveals Sargent's extraordinary skill--his idiosyncratic brushwork, which is vigorous and confident, is already recognizable. Sargent absorbed these lessons into his own oeuvre, especially in his portrait of the Boit daughters nearby.
1879, John Singer Sargent, "Las Meninas," after Velázquez -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: Sargent's teacher Carolus-Duran famously urged his students: "Velázquez, Velázquez, Velázquez, relentlessly study Velázquez!" When Sargent finished his formal training in Paris, he dutifully traveled to Madrid and registered as a copyist at the Prado Museum, the greatest repository of the Spanish painter's work in the world. Between mid-October and mid-November 1879, Sargent copied at least nine paintings by Diego Velázquez, including the masterpiece Las Meninas (1656), a portrait of Infanta Margarita Teresa, the young daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, surrounded by her attendants. This copy reveals Sargent's attention to Velázquez's spatial and compositional construction, tonalities, chiaroscuro, and technique. It also reveals Sargent's extraordinary skill--his idiosyncratic brushwork, which is vigorous and confident, is already recognizable. Sargent absorbed these lessons into his own oeuvre, especially in his portrait of the Boit daughters nearby.