Study for Three Dancing Figures
artist
John Singer Sargent
(Florence, 1856 - 1925, London)
Date1916-1921
Place MadeUnited States, North America
MediumCharcoal on paper
Dimensions47.6 x 63 cm (18 3/4 x 24 13/16 in.)
ClassificationsDrawings
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberS.G.Sar.4.1.10
eMuseum ID723465
EmbARK ObjectID18177
TMS Source ID6223
Last Updated8/9/24
Status
Not on viewWeb CommentaryIn 1916, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) met Thomas Eugene McKeller (1890–1962), a young, Black elevator attendant, at Boston’s Hotel Vendome. McKeller posed for most of the figures—both male and female—in Sargent’s murals in the Museum of Fine Arts. The painter transformed McKeller into white gods and goddesses, creating soaring allegories of the liberal arts that celebrated the recent expansion of the city’s premier civic museum. Sargent then gave several preparatory drawings of McKeller to Isabella Stewart Gardner, ensuring their preservation in perpetuity.
Model Anna Wendell posed for this rapid sketch, a study for the central twisting nude in Sargent’s plaster relief of Three Dancing Figures. An inscription provides Wendell’s name and address so she could be called back. For other female forms, Sargent relied on male models including McKeller, reimagining his body with prosthetic breasts shaped from cheesecloth.
Model Anna Wendell posed for this rapid sketch, a study for the central twisting nude in Sargent’s plaster relief of Three Dancing Figures. An inscription provides Wendell’s name and address so she could be called back. For other female forms, Sargent relied on male models including McKeller, reimagining his body with prosthetic breasts shaped from cheesecloth.
BibliographyNotesRollin van N. Hadley (ed.). Drawings: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1968), p. 52.
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), p. 223.
Nathaniel Silver et al. Boston’s Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent. Exh. cat (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2020), pp. 194-95, cat. 10. (as Study for Three Dancing Figures)
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), p. 223.
Nathaniel Silver et al. Boston’s Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent. Exh. cat (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2020), pp. 194-95, cat. 10. (as Study for Three Dancing Figures)
MarksNotesSigned in pencil (lower right): John S. Sargent
Inscribed upper right in pencil: Miss Anne Kendall [OR Miss Anna Wendell] / 5 Peabody St. / Back Bay
Watermark: L. BERVILLE (FRANCE) / Lalanne
Inscribed upper right in pencil: Miss Anne Kendall [OR Miss Anna Wendell] / 5 Peabody St. / Back Bay
Watermark: L. BERVILLE (FRANCE) / Lalanne
ProvenanceNotesProbably a gift from John Singer Sargent to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1921.
