416 John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925) Study of a Man’s Head, c. 1878 Unsigned, inscribed “182” and “4242,” with red wax seal remnants on the stretcher. Oil on canvas, 22 x 17 1/4 in. (55.9 x 43.8 cm), framed. Condition: Lined, retouch above and below the varnish layer, surface grime. Provenance: Auguste Alexandre Hirsch; Mme. Hirsch, 1912; M. Knoedler & Co., London, January 7, 1914 (stock no. 5782); presented by Charles S. Carstairs of Knoedler, London, to Mrs. Reginald Nicholson (née Pearson), November 1915 (stock nos. WC 965 and 13621); private Rhode Island collection. Literature: Probably the work listed in Mount 1955, p. 428 (806), dated 1880, as “Gondolier (study of a man). 17 1/4 x 22, formerly Knoedler”; 1957 ed., p. 336 (806); 1969 ed., p. 463 (806); Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent, Figures and Landscapes, 1874-1882, Complete Paintings, Volume IV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 40, 389, no. 624.
N.B. The present work is recently rediscovered, and had been untraced since its acquisition in 1915 by Mrs. Reginald Nicholson [née Natalie Pearson] (d. 1956). Ms. Pearson was the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Stark Pearson of Great Barrington, Massachusetts.1 She married Reginald Nicholson MBE (1869-1946), manager of the London Times, on February 15, 1915. Prior to the London Times, Mr. Nicholson was a manager at the Somerville Electric Light Company (created by Natalie’s father), and later became chief engineer for the Metropolitan Street Railway in New York.2 Like Natalie’s father, Mr. Nicholson was an alumnus of Tufts University, and he also owned a residence in Great Barrington. According to the authors of the catalogue raisonné, the model appears to be the same person as depicted in several other early Sargent studies, and the present work was one of eleven acquired by Knoedler from the collection of Sargent’s studio mate, Auguste Alexandre Hirsch (1833-1912).3 1. Oscar McMurtrie Voorhees, ed., The Phi Beta Kappa Key, Volume 2, No. 9, October 1915, p. 448. 2. “Natalie Pearson Engaged. American Engineer’s Daughter to Wed Reginald Nicholson,” New York Times, January 9, 1915, p. 11. 3. Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent, Figures and Landscapes, 1874-1882, Complete Paintings, Volume IV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 40.
$200,000-300,000
416
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