Portrait of Mrs. Asher B. Wertheimer

In the late 19th century, American artists were part of a vast network of artists that exchanged artworks and ideas on both sides of the Atlantic. American artists brought together an international array of artistic influences in their search for a distinctively American style. Born in the United States, Sargent spent much of his life living in Paris and London, but also travelled the world to paint in Venice, Egypt, Morocco and throughout the United States. Sargent’s virtuosic portraits of American and European aristocracy made him one of the most in-demand portraitists of his time. Called “a brilliant ambassador between his patrons and posterity,” Sargent’s sensitive and emotional portrayals of his sitters won him portrait commissions from some of the wealthiest and most famous people of the day. In 1898, the wealthy London art dealer Asher B. Wertheimer commissioned portraits of himself and his wife Flora to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. Wertheimer went on to commission Sargent to create twelve additional portraits of his entire family, a commission that took Sargent over ten years to complete and caused him to complain to his journal that he was suffering from “chronic Wertheimerism.”