This is the portrait of Lady Agnew by John Singer Sargent. It’s one of the most popular
portraits in the gallery’s collection. It was the portrait that helped launch Sargent
as a portrait painter in Britain and was also the portrait which
launched Lady Agnew in society.
According to legend, she walked into the studio one day and slumped down in a chair and Sargent
really liked to capture the most naturalistic pose for his sitters and so he decided to
paint the portrait exactly as she was on that first day.
The painting was a hybrid of English aestheticism and French impressionism and one was expected
to look at the portrait and think of it not just as a portrait
but as a pleasing aesthetic object.
What we get here is an almost effortless paint application. It appears he’s gone in he’s
understood the sitter he’s applied the paint and it’s just sort of happened. But as is
generally the case with works by Sargent, when you start looking more closely you realise
there has been a struggle within the process and that there is a myriad of small adjustments,
small changes. For example on Lady Agnew, when you start looking closely round the sash
area you start to see where the artist has made changes. Where is, how high did the sash
go up, how tight, how small was the waist? Is this an exaggeration? We don’t know but
he has certainly spent some time redefining that area. Similarly with the pendant you
can just about see a slight shadow which indicates the pendant at some point was actually hanging
lower so he obviously felt from a visual perspective it made more sense, it balanced better by
having the pendant hanging at a higher height. We also see some alterations in this area
here and also some repositioning round the neckline where the artist has gone back and
redefined the outline and possibly even down the side of the face.
The face is much more carefully painted than the rest of the portrait. However, the portrait
is generally designed to be seen at a distance so if you look very closely at the detail
you see that its, the detail like the flowers on the chair are very roughly painted but
when you move away from the portrait they come together and they look like proper flowers.
When this was first painted it was in high demand for loan. Allegedly the story goes
that on loan to the Grafton Gallery on its return it sustained a damage, a tear in fact
in this part of the painting. Close examination now we know there is a tear there; it’s
obviously been repaired a long time ago. The owner was really quite annoyed and there’s
an excellent quote where he says ‘They (that is the Grafton Gallery) they were anxious
enough to get my most valued picture and to reap the benefit of its presence on their
walls. But as soon as they have done with it they show a singular indifference to the
safe delivery to the owner ’
Lady Agnew was around about 26 or 27 when this portrait was done and she has this very
kind of dominating presence. A lot of people find her pose very seductive although we know
that at the time she was suffering from this very long illness. Despite the fact that she
looks quite fragile in this painting she was really quite a feisty individual and she was
what one might describe as a new woman of the late 19th century. She led a very extravagant
lifestyle and in fact she spent a lot of the Agnew fortune and in the end she was rather
sadly obliged to sell the painting in order to make some money for herself.