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A biography of an evocative portrait, contextualising it within Sargent’s career and practice, and unveiling the life of the sitter and the picture’s critical history.Gertrude Vernon, or Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, was an English woman who married a Scot. The American artist John Singer Sargent excelled as a painter in Europe. His portrait of Lady Agnew was painted in London but has found its definitive home in Edinburgh. All these contexts converge in a supremely beautiful painting which is one the icons of the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Created in the 1890s, it proved to be a seminal work in the lives of the artist and his subject and has enjoyed a rich afterlife, inspiring artistic and written responses. This book offers a fascinating biography of this most accomplished, evocative and admired of portraits, placing it in the context of Sargent’s career and how he worked, discussing the life of the sitter and unveiling the picture’s rich critical history.
List of contents
6 Director's Foreword 9 Introduction 11 The Artist 21 Lady Agnew and John Singer Sargent 41 Reputations Made 57 Conclusion 61 Notes on sources and select bibliography 63 Copyright and photographic credits 63 Acknowledgements
About the author
Christopher Baker is an Honorary Professor at Edinburgh University. He was a Director at the National Galleries of Scotland and has worked at Christ Church, Oxford, and the National Gallery in London. Christopher has published and lectured widely on 18th and 19th-century British and European art and the history of collecting and taste and organized numerous exhibitions in the U.K. and internationally. In 2023 he became the Editor of
The Burlington Magazine.
