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Overview

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).

Inscription

upper right: John S. Sargent 1902

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.

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

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