“Ask me to paint your gates, your fences, your barns, which I should gladly do, but not the human face,” begged John Singer Sargent after completing this picture of Lady Wilma Pleydell-Bouverie Bootle-Wilbraham, Countess of Lathom (1869–1931)—“Queenie” for short. Such privileged clients adored Sargent’s vigorous, gestural brushstrokes for the modern but elegant energy they brought to traditional portraiture. These commissions generated income and prestige, but Sargent sought more creative projects. He later turned exclusively to painting landscapes and allegorical murals for grand public buildings.
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