Two Girls on a Lawn. John Singer Sargent. c. 1889. Oil on canvas, 21 1/8 x 25 1/4 in. (53.7 x 64.1 cm). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (50.130.20), Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 1950. Click on image to enlarge it.
Commentary from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website
Sargent probably painted this canvas at Fladbury Rectory, an old house he rented in Worcestershire, England, where he was joined by his mother, his sisters, Emily and Violet, and other guests. “V & Katie Vickers” is inscribed in an unknown hand on the tacking edge of the canvas. “V” presumably refers to Violet, wearing a black dress because her father, Dr. FitzWilliam Sargent, had recently died. The woman in the white frock cannot be identified; no Katie Vickers is known in the Sargents’ circle. In any case, the artist was concerned not with capturing individual likenesses but with creating a daring two-dimensional pattern in black, white, and green.
Last modified 25 May 2016