John Singer Sargent Painting on Loan to Area Art Museum

John Singer Sargent’s painting, “An Interior in Venice” began as an unwanted gift. 

In 1898, Sargent was a guest of Ariana and Daniel Curtis at the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice.

As a thank you gift, he painted a portrait of the couple and their son, Ralph, and his wife. But the elder Mrs. Curtis did not like the painting.

Karl Kusserow, curator of American Art at Princeton University Art Museum, said Mrs. Curtis thought she looked old and indistinct, and she disliked the image of her son leaning against an antique table. 

But Sargent submitted the piece as his diploma work for acceptance to London’s Royal Academy of Art, which still owns the painting today. 

Now people in Central Jersey have an opportunity to see “An Interior in Venice," on display through Dec. 11 at the Princeton University Art Museum's Mary Ellen Bowen Gallery of American Art. 

In exchange for the Sargent painting, PUAM loaned its Edgar Degas' painting "Dancing" to the Royal Academy of Art.

Princeton's museum already owns Sargent's “Elizabeth Allen Marquand" and will display the other Sargent painting nearby.

Kusserow notes parallels between the two works, and said it is serendipitous that they are being shown together for the first time.

“It’s a good opportunity to show two very important paintings in his career that happen to make a really interesting contrast,” Kusserow said. “And that contrast is informed in his biography in the circumstances that were behind the production of Mrs. Marquand in particular.”

Sargent’s reputation in Europe fell after he painted Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau in “Portrait of Madame X." That Gautreau bared her shoulders and upper chest in the painting was considered scandalous at the time. 

Sargent later returned to the U.S. to paint a commissioned portrait of Henry Marquand's wife in Newport, R.I. Incidentally, the Marquands’ son, Allen, was the art museum’s first director and the first art history professor at Princeton University.

“Sargent was famously indifferent to this country,” Kusserow said. “Although he was an American, he spent most of his life abroad and didn’t particularly want to come back. But the price was very high and I think he really needed the work because of everything drying up abroad.”

The portrait of Mrs. Marquand, in the words of Kusserow, is “very restrained and exceptional and effective.”

She sits on an 18th-century Chippendale chair in an antique, dark dress with a fichu draped around her neck. 

“That’s very different from the portrait of Madame X, which got him in so much trouble,” Kussereow said. “So what this portrait did was signal to other people, like Mrs. Marquand, who also might give him commissions in America, that he was a safe bet, and indeed a good bet, and it worked. As a result of this portrait he really had his career revived.”

Also on loan to Princeton University Art Museum is Mark Rothko’s “Magenta, Black Green and Orange (No. 3/No. 13)” from the Museum of Modern Art through Jan. 8.

In exchange, PUAM loaned Willem de Kooning’s “Black Friday” for MOMA’s de Kooning retrospective.

The Princeton University Art Museum is located on the campus of Princeton University. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursdays and 1-5 p.m. on Fridays. Admission is free. For information, call 609-258-3788 or visit artmuseum.princeton.edu.