John Singer Sargent's (1856 - 1925) Ladies with Fans

Summer is passing so quickly. It is surely time to share these portraits of women holding fans dressed in luminous summer dresses.

The painter of these portraits, John Singer Sargent, was one of the American artists who went to study in Paris. After the American Civil War, Paris was a bustling cosmopolitan city & the capital of the western art world. Art students went to Paris to enroll in one of the many art schools there, seeking to polish their academic education. More established artists used Paris as a proving ground, leveraging exhibiting in its important international exhibitions to establish their artistic reputations. A few made Paris their home, becoming part of a significant American expatriate community in the French capital. As the novelist Henry James reported of the "irresistible city" in an 1887 article, "it sounds like a paradox, but it is a very simple truth, that when today we look for American art we find it mainly in Paris. When we find it out of Paris, we at least find a good deal of Paris in it."

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Etta Durham

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Ian Hamilton (Jean Muir)

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Joseph Chamberlain

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Thomas Wodehouse Legh

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Hamilton McKown Twombly (Florence Adele Vanderbilt)
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Cecil Wade

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Countess Clary Aldringen Threse Kinsky
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Mahlon Day Sands (Mary Hartpeace)
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Ada Rehan
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Frederick Barnard

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Henry White
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs William Playfair.