John Singer Sargent's The Chess Game  (Frontpage)  (What's New)  (Thumbnails)  (Refer This Site)
 
 
 
 
The Chess Game 
John Singer Sargent -- American painter 
1907 
Oil on canvas 
Private collection 
69.9 x 55.3 cm (27-1/2 x 21-3/4 in.) 
 Jpg: The Pragmatic Romanticist

Sargent was an avid chess player and was a game he often played on his painting trips. 

In the summer of 1907 Sargent takes a trip to Purtud which is a little town in the Val d'Aosta on the Italian-Swiss border and there he paints his nieces and friends.  

Just like his formal commissioned portraits were he often picked out the dresses for the women he painted, he often packed away in preparation for these long trips, exotic shawls and clothes to have his friends and family wear when he painted them. The Chess Game was such an occasion and here we see Nicola d'Inverno, Sargent's personal valet, along with probably one of his nieces. D'Inverno first started posing for JSS in 1891 for the Boston Library murals. 
 
 
A Game of Chess (Sketch)

Notes

Exhibitions

John Singer Sargent, An Exhibition -- Whitney Museum, NY & The Art Institute of Chicago 1986-1987


  •  See the year in review -- 1907
 
 
 
 
By:  Natasha Wallace
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Created 2001