Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent
"Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess d'Abernon" is a 1904 oil painting by John Singer Sargent which is a highlight of the permanent collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art. The 64 1/2" x 42 1/2" canvas was purchased at auction in 1984 with funds provided by John Bohorfoush, the 1984 Museum Dinner and Ball, and the Museum Store.
Lady Helen Venetia Duncombe was born in 1866, daughter of the first Earl of Feversham of Duncombe Park, Yorkshire. She married Sir Edgar Vincent, a veteran of the Coldstream Guards nine years her senior, in 1890, shortly after he took over the governorship of the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. He held that position until 1897 and in 1899 he was elected a Member of Parliament for Exeter. Lady Helen was, "the most celebrated hostess of her age and was 'by reason of her outstanding beauty, intelligence and charm, one of the most resplendent figures [in the later Victorian and Edwardian Social World]'" 1. She is believed to have been the model for the characters of Lady Thisbe Crowborough in Max Beerbohm's story Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton (1919) and for Lady Irene Silvester in Maurice Baring's story "A Luncheon Party" (1925) 2.
In 1914 Sir Edgar was granted the title of Baron D'Abernon. During World War I he chaired the Central Control Board, overseeing the traffic of liquor in the British Empire and later wrote a treatise on the effects of alcohol. Lady Helen trained as an anesthetist and treated over 10,000 patients during the war. Afterward, Sir Edgar served as the on the Inter-Allied Mission to Poland in 1920 and as the British ambassador in Berlin from 1923 to 1926, during which time Lady Helen kept a diary of her experiences, which was later published. When he retired from the foreign service Baron Edgar was elevated to Viscount D'Abernon. In 1936 he became Baronet of Stoke d'Abernon. The Vincents were childless and his titles expired with him in 1941. Lady Helen died in 1954.
John Singer Sargent was, by the time of this portrait, renowned as the premiere portraitist working. Born to American expatriates in Florence, Italy, Sargent grew up traveling throughout Europe and without formal schooling. He learned drawing from his parents who encouraged him to sketch during their travels. He began his serious study of painting in the atelier of Carolus-Duran in Paris and was soon admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts. A star student, he mastered the alla prima method of using loaded brushes to build up tones without intricate delineation and underpainting. Although he preferred landscapes, he adapted to the lucrative market for portraiture and embarked on a long and stellar career.
This portrait of Helen was posed in a salon of the Palazzo Giustiniani on the Grand Canal of Venice (glimpsed through the balustrade in the background). A charcoal study of her face, possibly a wardrobe study for the same portrait, is held by the York Art Gallery. It was one of the few full portraits executed in oil that Sargent produced in Venice, though he visited the city almost every year. More often he spent his time painting outdoor scenes in watercolor. He officially retired from the portrait-painting business in 1907.
The painting hangs in a wood frame in the style of 17th century Spanish court that was built for Sargent by Charles Mitchell May.3. It is currently displayed alongside another Sargent sketch in the museum's American Galleries.
Notes
- Times of London (May 18, 1954), quoted in Rintoul - 1993
- Rintoul - 1993
- Simon - 1996
References
- Rintoul, M. C. (1993) Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction. London: Taylor & Francis. p. 919. ISBN 0415059992
- Simon, Jacob, The Art of the Picture Frame, National Portrait Gallery, 1996, p. 135, cited in (January 2003 ) Simon, Jacob "Notes on John Singer Sargent's frames". National Portrait Gallery
- Morris, Roderick Conway (April 20, 2007) "Sargent's Venice work illustrates an artistic double-life." International Herald Tribune
- "Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 10 Jan 2009, 07:08 UTC. 21 Feb 2009 [1].
- "John Singer Sargent." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 15 Feb 2009, 05:44 UTC. 21 Feb 2009 [2].