New acquisition: John Singer Sargent

Reynolda House Museum of American Art

Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Baker of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, have recently gifted Reynolda House Museum of American Art a very valuable and prized piece of American art history in the work of John Singer Sargent’s (1856-1925) portrait Mrs. Augustus Hemenway, created in 1890. With the museum’s commitment to education—“intentionally designed to integrate art, learning and nature,” reads the website, the Baker’s felt that they were “leaving this iconic piece in good hands, as it will serve the widest possible audience and will be used as a teaching tool for many years to come.”

Sargent is largely considered one of the most popular portrait painters of the gilded age. “Painting in Paris, London, New York and Boston, Sargent was known to invest in his subjects with elegance, vitality and keen psychological insights,” notes the Reynolda House. The museum is also excited to join the newly acquired painting with another Sargent piece in their possession; Marchesa Laura Spinola Núñez del Castillo, 1903, on long-term loan from museum founder Barbara Babcock Millhouse.John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Mrs. Augustus Hemenway, 1890. Oil on canvas. Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Baker.

So the story goes…the subject of the painting, Mrs. Augustus Hemenway or rather, Harriet Hemenway, “was a prominent woman in Boston society, known primarily as the founder of the Massachusetts Audubon Society,” notes the museum. At the request of her husband, Harriet commissioned a portrait from Sargent while he was visiting Boston. The artist disguised a then pregnant Harriet in the folds of her black dress and in the gesture of her hands grasping a water lily.

“In 1916,” notes Reynolda House, “the portrait of Harriet Hemenway was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. W.H. Downes, writing in the Boston Evening Transcript, praised the ‘brilliant, vital, vivid, and animated portrait of Mrs. Hemenway, also dated 1890. [It] is especially remarkable for the rich, glowing, transparent flesh tones, so handsomely contrasted with the fine tone of the black dress. The expression is that of a splendidly alive, normal, wholesome personality whose wide-open eyes look out with boldness, courage, and confidence upon a world that is well-worth living in.’”

Barbara Babcock Millhouse, museum founder remarks, “I am thrilled that the portrait of Harriet Hemenway will continue to inspire at Reynolda. John Singer Sargent’s portrayal of Hemenway can be classified as among his absolute best.” —