** This image was entitled Mrs Charles Stewart carstairs (nee Eliz ?? (believed to be incorrect)  Date? 
 

 
From: Boston Globe
Date: 7/2/2003

Museum adds a Sargent 
to collection

By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff, 7/2/2003

The Museum of Fine Arts confirmed yesterday that it has purchased the John Singer Sargent painting entitled ''Charles Stewart, Sixth Marquess of Londonderry, Carrying the Great Sword of State at the Coronation of King Edward VII, August, 1902, and Mr. W. C. Beaumont, His Page on That Occasion.''  

The painting will be on display in the Susan Morse Hilles Gallery through Sunday. It was placed there last month, a few months 

Daughters of Edward Darley Boit 1882

after one of the MFA's most famous Sargents, ''The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit'' was lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. On Aug. 13, the gallery will reopen as an all-Sargent space, with both the Boit daughters and ''Lord Londonderry,'' the museum's shorthand name for the work.

The MFA wouldn't say how much the new Sargent cost, other than that it was at least $1 million. Officials also wouldn't say where it came from, though the John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery (www.jssgallery.org) lists it as part of New York financier Henry Kravis's collection. 

MFA director Malcolm Rogers said the owner's agent contacted him in early May, a day after he and Elliot Bostwick Davis, chair of the MFA's art of the Americas department, were discussing a hole in the museum's collection: The MFA has more than 500 Sargents, but no full-length portrait of a man. 

''It's not Sargent at his most intimate,'' says Trevor Fairbrother, a former MFA curator who acknowledges the painting isn't his favorite. ''It's not the Boit girls, where there's a very strong rapport with the subject matter. It's more Sargent painting an important person in an important costume, and he's an important artist. It's a very good addition for them.''

Or as Erica Hirshler, MFA senior curator of paintings in the art of the Americas department, puts it: ''If we're going to be an encyclopedic collection of Sargent, then you can't leave out a third of his career.''

Sargent, an American painter who lived from 1856 to 1925, has a special connection to Boston. Three of his murals are featured in local buildings, including the MFA, Boston Public Library, and Harvard's Widener Library.

In ''Lord Londonderry,'' the central figure, dressed in white, holds a massive sword firmly in his hands. ''It's called the `Great Sword of State,' and it is a symbol of all the majesty of the king,'' Rogers says. ''I think it's kept in the Tower of London. It's not quite 4 feet, but it looks pretty big.''
Geoff Edgers <gedgers@globe.com>
Story site
This story ran on page E8 of the Boston Globe on 7/2/2003.
Boston Globe
135 Morrissey Boulevard
P.O. Box 2378
Boston, MA 02107-2378
617-929-2000

Notes:
Special thanks to Bert "Pragmatic Romanticist", a friend of the JSS Gallery, for help with this image of Sargent's painting. 

Provenance

Was in the Collection of Henry R. Kravis (per John Singer Sargent; Patricia Hills Whitney Museum, 1987) prior to Musuem of fine Arts, Boston purchase as of July 2003. One source who claims to have been near the transaction says the price was in the neighborhood of 3 million.

Exhibitions

• The Pragmatic Romanticist  
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• See the year in review 1902