1880, John Singer Sargent, Edouard and Marie-Louis Pailleron) -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: This remarkable portrait of siblings Edouard (1865-1947) and Marie-Louise (1870-1951) Pailleron is the final and most psychologically intense of the three portraits that Sargent painted of the family. According to Marie-Louise, who was eleven years old at the time, its creation involved a staggering--and possibly apocryphal--eighty-three sittings during which the artist and the headstrong girl battled over her attire and pose. Marie-Louise seems to be the focal point of the picture. Her probing gaze, gripped right fist, and erect posture capture her indomitable personality. The painting was generally admired at the Paris Salon of 1881 even though Sargent created a view of childhood that is unusually tense and serious, in contrast to the sentimental conventions popular among his contemporaries.
1880, John Singer Sargent, Edouard and Marie-Louis Pailleron) -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: This remarkable portrait of siblings Edouard (1865-1947) and Marie-Louise (1870-1951) Pailleron is the final and most psychologically intense of the three portraits that Sargent painted of the family. According to Marie-Louise, who was eleven years old at the time, its creation involved a staggering--and possibly apocryphal--eighty-three sittings during which the artist and the headstrong girl battled over her attire and pose. Marie-Louise seems to be the focal point of the picture. Her probing gaze, gripped right fist, and erect posture capture her indomitable personality. The painting was generally admired at the Paris Salon of 1881 even though Sargent created a view of childhood that is unusually tense and serious, in contrast to the sentimental conventions popular among his contemporaries.