Peter A. B. Widener

1902

John Singer Sargent

Artist, American, 1856 - 1925

Shown from the knees up, an older, pale-skinned man stands with his body angled to our right as he looks at us from the corners of his eyes in this vertical portrait painting. His short fringe of hair around a balding head and his bushy moustache are steel gray, and he gazes at us with brown eyes under thick brows. A long, hooked nose and small red mouth are set in his jowl-lined face. He wears a long, fern-green coat with a matching vest trimmed in gold over a white shirt. A polka-dotted, pine-green cravat is tied around the standing collar and held in place with a gold pin. Two copper-colored brushstrokes near his waist suggest a pocket watch chain. The hand closer to us hangs by his hip with the thumb hooked into the pocket of his trousers, which are loosely painted with long strokes of olive and sage green. His other hand rests on the mahogany-brown wooden door that fills the space beyond him. Inset panels on the door are outlined in darker brown to create stepped, geometric shapes. The man is warmly lit from the upper left and the background is in shadow. The artist signed and dated the painting in the upper right, “John S. Sargent 1902.”

Media Options

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Financier, politician, and philanthropist Peter Arrell Brown Widener (1834–1915) made his fortune through multiple entrepreneurial enterprises, including investments in trolley cars and public transit systems in his native Philadelphia and elsewhere. An avid art collector, Widener filled Lynnewood Hall, his mansion just outside Philadelphia, with European paintings, oriental carpets, and Chinese porcelain. In 1942, this portrait, along with other items in Widener’s collection, was given to the National Gallery of Art by his son Joseph (1872–1943).

Shown in a three-quarter view, Widener stands beside a paneled wooden door, his left hand resting on the doorknob and his body and gaze turned to the right. The painting’s dramatic lighting casts much of Widener’s face in shadow, resulting in a striking chiaroscuro effect reminiscent of the Dutch and Flemish 17th-century paintings Widener admired. In fact, this painting hung over the mantelpiece in the Van Dyck room at Lynnewood Hall, where Widener’s celebrated collection of Van Dyck portraits also hung. Edith Appleton Standon, curator of the elder Widener’s collection, later recalled Joseph Widener remarking that Sargent “had not wanted his picture to be in such company but that [Peter Widener] considered that it held its own very well.” After completing this portrait in London in 1902, Sargent went on to paint Widener again the following year at Lynnewood Hall—a painting now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II, pages 117-120, which is available as a free PDF (21MB).

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 148.9 x 98.4 cm (58 5/8 x 38 3/4 in.)
    framed: 181.9 x 131.1 cm (71 5/8 x 51 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.101

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The sitter; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1903

  • Seventy-second Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1903, no. 26.

1905

  • Possibly Loan Exhibition of Portraits, Art Institute of Chicago, 1905, no. 112.

2018

  • John Singer Sargent and Chicago's Gilded Age, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2018, no. 29, repro.

Bibliography

1956

  • McKibbin, David. Sargent's Boston. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1956: 131.

1969

  • Mount, Charles Merrill. John Singer Sargent: A Biography. Rev. ed. (originally published 1955). New York, 1969: 456.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 96, repro.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 220, repro.

1981

  • Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: repro. 145, 146.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 190, 192, color repros.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 332, repro.

1998

  • Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 117-120, color repro.

  • Ormond, Richard, and Elaine Kilmurray. John Singer Sargent: The Later Portraits. The Complete Paintings, Volume III. New Haven and London, 2003: no. 429, repro.

2020

  • Libby, Alexandra. “From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art.” In America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and their Circles, edited by Esmée Quodbach. The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America 5. University Park, 2020: 135, color fig. 135, 187 nt. 17.

2021

  • Quodbach, Esmée. "A forgotten episode from America's history of collecting: the rise and fall of art dealer Leo Nardus, 1894-1908." Simiolus 43, no. 4 (2021): 353-375, esp. 358 fig. 6.

Inscriptions

upper right: John S. Sargent 1902

Wikidata ID

Q20190834

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