John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was a well-known oil and watercolor painter known for his portraits of Edwardian socialites and scenes of travel and countryside. Emily Sargent (1857-) was John’s sister and an accomplished watercolorist in her own right. Traveling together and apart, they documented European architecture, vibrant street scenes, and warm domestic interiors.
Born in raised in Europe to American expatriate parents, John and Emily spent their lives traveling in Europe and across the world. John was celebrated in his time and had a large circle of famous friends, including some of the the late 19th and early 20th century’s coolest gays, such as Oscar Wilde and Vernon Lee.
Emily had a quieter life, lacking access to formal art education and suffering long-term mobility limitations from a childhood spinal injury, but nonetheless traveled widely and documented her travels in art. Her style is looser than John’s, and looks to me more akin to the type of travel sketches I see in the urban sketching movement today.
John, the portraitist, occasionally painted Emily, including this scene of Emily alongside her close friend and frequent traveling companion, Eliza Wedgewood (of the famous porcelain manufacturing family).
Supplies Used
I am not able to identify Emily’s supplies, so I will stick to describing John’s. Likely they are similar because of their close association and the limited number of options available at the time.
According to a 2018 spectrographic and X-ray analysis of eleven of Sargent’s watercolors by a team led by Veronica Biolcati of the Art Institute of Chicago:
The contents of Sargent’s watercolor palette expands as time goes on with more expensive colors like Cadmium yellows and oranges. The pigments found in the eleven watercolors shows a consistent use of Prussian, cobalt, ultramarine, vermilion, iron oxide, organic reds, umber, chromium-based green estimated to be viridian, cadmium yellows, chromium-based yellows, and zinc white. Some of the outlier pigments found in small accents of the watercolors include red lead, Indian yellow, and emerald green.
AIC conference notes by Brooke Prestowitz, describing a presentation by Veronica Biolcati
The analysis also identified other supplies that Singer used, including:
- J Whatman rough press paper
- Wax resists including those made from spermaceti (whaling product)
- Glossy finish made from gum arabic
- Opaque zinc white used thickly to add highlights
Lesson: never be ashamed to use white gouache after the fact to pull out highlights you didn’t preserve. John Singer Sargent did it!
There is a “gouache-like” quality to some of Emily’s paintings that makes me think she did as well.
Modern equivalents
| JSS used | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|
| Cadmium Yellow (PY35) | same, or other lemon to middle yellows |
| Chromium Yellow (PY34) | middle to orange-yellows |
| Vermilion (cinnabar) | scarlets such as PR255, PR188 |
| “organic reds” (e.g. natural madder rose, carmine/cochineal) | rose/magenta or red/crimson, such as Quin Rose |
| Ultramarine Blue (PB29) | same |
| Cobalt Blue (PB28) | same |
| Prussian Blue (PB27) | same, or Phthalo Blue |
| Viridian (PG18) | same, or Phthalo Green |
| “iron oxides” (e.g. Indian Red) | same |
| “umbers” e.g. Burnt Sienna | same |
| Zinc White (PW4) | same, or Titanium White (PW6) |
With all the “sames”, this is beginning to look like a modern palette! I had to do less substitution than with Winslow Homer, a semi-contemporary just one generation older. It’s really just the reds that have significantly improved. Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Prussian Blue, Viridian, and the earth tones are all still totally valid options, though some of these color categories now have additional options that would not have been available to the Sargents.
Comments
One response to “Artist Palette Profiles: John Singer Sargent & Emily Sargent”
A Boston MFA special exhibition introduced me to Singer’s watercolors many years (25+?) ago. I had no idea before then that he painted anything but portraits in oils, or that watercolor in general was attractive to me. It was “Corfu, light and colors” that drew me to watercolor. I loved what he did with the light. It’s so interesting that his palette was so close to a modern palette!