Lot 93: JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856-1925) SPANISH DANCER

oil on canvas 87 3/4 by 59 1/2 in.222.9 by 151.1 cm. In both size and subject, Spanish Dancer was conceived on a grand scale and probably intended as an exhibition piece for the 1881 Paris Salon. Painted in Paris between September 1880 and the spring of 1881, it prefigures Sargent's 1882 masterpiece, El Jaleo(94 1/2 by 137 inches; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) which created a sensation at the Salon in the spring of that year. Sargent chose not to exhibit Spanish Dancer and shortly after its completion, through unexplained circumstances, it came into his maid's possession. Only temporarily employed by Sargent, she in turn gave the painting to her former employer, an art collector residing outside of Paris, who in 1897 corresponded twice with Sargent in order to have the work authenticated. It is obvious from Sargent's letters of 1897, which are still with the painting, that the artist was puzzled as to how the gentleman had come to own Spanish Dancer and that it must have disappeared without his knowledge. In one letter he writes: "I must have left it behind in one of my moves in Paris." In his second letter he notes: "It is a painting which was done quite a number of years ago and which I had lost sight of. I would be curious to know by what circumstances it came to be in your possession, and by the way I congratulate you for it. If it is not too great an imposition I would be pleased if you could tell me something about it. I would even dare to ask you to be good enough to let me know in the event you might be tempted to part with it." The painting remained in the gentleman's family until it was discovered in 1988 and it subsequently entered the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Cherry. Spanish Dancer was painted one year after Sargent's first trip to Spain. With its brilliant blacks and chromatically rich whites set against a spare background of warm ochres and cool greys, Spanish Dancer is very much informed by the artist's assimilation of works by Velazquez and knowledge of Manet's earlier paintings of Spanish scenes. The subject of the lone gypsy dancer has a longstanding art historical tradition rooted in Velazquez's depictions of figures culled from the margins of contemporary society. Spanish Dancer is not, however, a simple amalgamation of various precedents, but a showcase in which Sargent displays his absorption and transformation of these formative influences. The gypsy's pose, which developed through a series of pencil drawings culminating in the closely related watercolor (11 3/4 by 7 7/8 inches; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas), has been carefully crafted into a sinuous, unbroken line. From her voluminous white skirt to her outurned palm, tilted head and raised arm, the dancer, silhouetted against a smoky backdrop, commands the canvas with both power and drama. As revealed by pentimenti in the upper left background, the dancer was at one time accompanied by several male figures, one singing and one possibly playing the guitar. As Elizabeth Oustinoff and Warren Adelson have observed: "it is difficult to judge whether Sargent intended to include the seated musicians from the outset or if they were added as he commenced painting the large canvas. In either case, they were unsuccessful, and he painted them out... Sargent's inability to include them is telling; it may well have been the reason he abandoned the canvas. (John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo, exh. cat., p. 113)." The resolution of the formal problems posed by a multi-figured composition would be realized on an even more monumental scale when Sargent embarked on El Jaleo shortly afterward. The pictorial possibilities of a dominating single figure depicted in profile reached a striking climax in 1884 with Sargent's infamous portrait of Madame X (Madame Gautreau), (82 1/2 by 43 1/4 inches; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) which as Mary Crawford Volk has noted "also presented an exotic subject, although one drawn from the world of fashionable Paris instead of the distant realm of Andalusian gypsies (op. cit., p.67)." Like its worldly counterpart Madame X, Spanish Dancer is a highly finished and refined work whose portrait-like quality is visible through closely observed details, such as the dancer's bracelet and carefully rendered shawl. By contrast El Jaleo is gestural and raw - - it relies on form as well as content to convey the wild rhythms and calculated steps of the gypsy dance. Since its discovery in 1988, Spanish Dancer has been the catalyst for a major reexamination of Sargent's work on Spanish themes, most recently in 1992 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. After years of obscurity, Spanish Dancer has at last assumed its rightful place of prominence. This painting will be included in Richard Ormond's and Elaine Kilmurray's forthcoming catalogue raisonne of the artist's work. Provenance: The artist Private Collection, France (acquired from the above circa 1882) Coe Kerr Gallery, New York (acquired from the family of the above, 1988) Purchased by the present owner from the above Exhibited: Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo, March-November 1992, p. 168, no. 26, p. 169, illustrated in color Literature: Warren Adelson and Elizabeth Oustinoff, "Sargent's Spanish Dancer - a discovery", Antiques, March, 1992, Vol. CXLI, no. 3, pp. 460-471, pls. 1 and 1a, illustrated in color.