Not on display
- Artist
- John Singer Sargent 1856–1925
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 2292 × 2299 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by Mrs Charles Hunter through the Art Fund 'in memory of a great artist and a great friend' 1926
- Reference
- N04180
Catalogue entry
N04180 THE MISSES HUNTER 1902
Inscr. ‘John S. Sargent 1902’ b.r.
Canvas, 90 1/4×90 1/2 (229×230).
Presented by Mrs Charles Hunter through the National Art-Collections Fund ‘in memory of a great artist and a great friend’ 1926.
Coll: Commissioned from the artist by Mrs Charles Hunter c. 1900.
Exh: R.A., 1902 (229); Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1903 (1167); 73rd Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January–March 1904 (53, repr. facing p.8); Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis, April–November 1904 (Art Palace, United States section, 670); Society of American Artists, New York, March–May 1904 (327); International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October–December 1925 (275); R.A., winter 1926 (397); York, March–May 1926 (41); Tate Gallery, June–October 1926.
Lit: Art Journal, 1902, p.210; Downes, 1925, pp.57–8, 197; Charteris, 1927, p.269; Dame Ethel Smyth, As Time Went on..., 1936, p.210; Mount, 1955, pp.232, 382, 437; McKibbin, 1956, p.102; Mount, 1957, pp.194, 315, 346.
Repr: N. Pousette-Dart, 1924, n.p.; Manson and Meynell, 1927, n.p.
Finished in the artist's studio at Tite Street, Chelsea, in 1902, this triple portrait was begun at Wharncliffe House some two or three years previously, according to a reviewer in the Art Journal (loc. cit.). On the back of the canvas there is a painted inscription (possibly in Sargent's hand): ‘The Misses Hunter Daughters of Charles Hunter Hill Hall Epping Kathleen married L. Cary-Elwes of Wolland [?] Cary Phyllis married F. C. Williamson son of Sir Hedworth Williamson Sylvia married Sir Grant-Lawson Bart Middlethorpe Lodge York.’ Charles Hunter was a wealthy colliery owner, whose wife became one of the leading hostesses in fashionable society of the Edwardian era. Her sister, Dame Ethel Smyth, recalls (op. cit.) that Kathleen (‘Kitty’) Hunter was the eldest daughter, Phyllis the next eldest, and Sylvia the youngest. The portrait was particularly admired by Auguste Rodin; when he saw it after the Academy banquet in 1902 he termed the painter the ‘Van Dyck of our times!’ (see also N04469).
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II
Explore
- clothing and personal items(5,879)
-
- fan(67)
- actions: postures and motions(9,111)
-
- sitting(3,347)
- woman(9,110)
- groups(310)
- individuals: female(1,698)
You might like
-
John Singer Sargent Portrait of Mrs Leopold Hirsch
1902 -
John Singer Sargent Mrs Wertheimer
1904 -
John Singer Sargent Hylda, Daughter of Asher and Mrs Wertheimer
1901 -
John Singer Sargent Ena and Betty, Daughters of Asher and Mrs Wertheimer
1901 -
John Singer Sargent Essie, Ruby and Ferdinand, Children of Asher Wertheimer
1902 -
John Singer Sargent Hylda, Almina and Conway, Children of Asher Wertheimer
1905 -
John Singer Sargent Almina, Daughter of Asher Wertheimer
1908 -
John Singer Sargent Miss Priestley
c.1889 -
John Singer Sargent Mrs Charles Hunter
1898 -
John Singer Sargent The Black Brook
c.1908 -
John Singer Sargent W. Graham Robertson
1894 -
John Singer Sargent Jean, Wife of Colonel Ian Hamilton
1896 -
John Singer Sargent Mrs Philip Leslie Agnew
1902 -
John Singer Sargent Portrait of Ena Wertheimer: A Vele Gonfie
1904 -
John Singer Sargent Mrs Carl Meyer and her Children
1896