Beschreibung:

John Singer Sargent American, 1856-1925 Val D'Aosta: A Mountain Stream, circa 1907 Stamped with the artist's estate stamp JSS on the reverse Oil on canvas 17 1/8 x 21 1/4 inches Provenance: M. Knoedler & Co., New York, no. 16308 Literature: Richard Ormond and Eileen Kilmartin, John Singer Sargent Figures and Landscapes, 1900-1907, Complete Paintings, Volume VII, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012, no. 1409 (as untraced), illus. p. 296 Richard Ormond describes the present work, the location of which was unknown when his catalogue raisonne of Sargent's work was published, as "a sketchy view of a stream, almost certainly the brook at Peuterey. In common with his other studies of the brook, the artist allows no horizon line to interrupt his close-up view of stream and brook." [John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1900-1907, Complete Paintings, Volume VII, p. 296] From 1900 to 1907, John Singer Sargent traveled extensively, visiting the Middle East as well as numerous destinations in Europe that included Spain, Norway, and the Alps. Tiring of formal portraiture, he delighted in creating a virtual travelogue of paintings that documented his trips. A visit to the Val D'Aosta in Italy inspired numerous works in oil and watercolor, several depicting crystalline Alpine waters playing over rocks and forming eddies in pools. These compositions, freely painted with robust brushstrokes, some depicting the rushing waters at close range, are nearly modern in sensibility. Val D'Aosta, clearly inspired by this sojourn, shows Sargent at his most fluid, the composition rendered in a vibrant palette of plums, green and gold. C Property of a Palm Beach Lady
Unlined. Touches of inpaint at the upper and lower right, and the upper left, corner. A 1/4 inch area of inpaint in the upper right quadrant.