SARGENT, JOHN SINGER. (1856-1925). American painter. Important Autograph Letter Signed, “John S. Sargent,” on crested Hotel Vendome stationery. Four pages, octavo. Boston, “Thursday ev’g,” no date. Very fine condition. To “Dear Mrs. Fiske Warren.” Sargent writes:

“I have just got your letter, and I find on consulting of my book that the only hour on Saturday that I can be certain of proposing to you is 5 o’clock in the lecture hall of the [Boston] Public Library (behind the placard saying ‘absolutely no admittance’). Can you come there at that time? Please ... come tomorrow evening to the Vendome and if I am out, state yes or no. The message will be given to me. That story, to which you must know that I am not responsible, is like the sea serpent — it appears at intervals. The first person who proposed it absconded. The second, who took it up died. I am quite passive in the matter but, would it come off, I have my conditions which are: that I cannot do anything until my library work is concluded and up in place, which will not be till July or August, after which I will die if I don’t get a month or more in the Rocky Mountains. After that I have one very important engagement which will later … weeks, besides a number of promises to fulfill in the way of showings — so then, if the sea serpent materializes, I could not do him until the autumn and perhaps the late autumn. I forgot to say that I shall be in the country all day Sunday. Yours sincerely, John S. Sargent.”

Though John Singer Sargent lived in the United States for only one year, Boston played an undeniably important part in his maturation as an artist. Not only was his first solo exhibition held at Boston’s St. Botolph Club in 1888, but his world renowned mural series, “History of Religion” (Sargent’s first and most complex mural program) was installed at the Boston Public Library over a period of nearly thirty years (1890-1919). His subject was to have been Spanish literature, but after returning from a trip to the Near East in the winter of 1890-1891 he was inspired to take religious history as his subject. Conceiving the work as an examination of religious thought, Sargent returned to his London Studio (Formerly James McNeill Whistler’s) and threw himself into the project. Sargent's first section was installed in 1895, followed by three more in 1903, 1916, and 1919. During the first three stages, all of Sargent’s murals were well-received by contemporary critics, but a public furor broke out among Boston’s Jewish community when the “Synagogue” panel was unveiled in 1919. Sargent, surprised and hurt by the attack, abandoned the work one panel short of completion. While working on this uncompleted masterwork, Sargent was also commissioned for two other murals, one for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (1916-1921) and another for the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University (1922). In addition to a generally favorable critical and the public reception (“Synagogue” being the solitary exception) Sargent’s American murals gave him the opportunity he needed to break away from the restrictive and demanding routine of commissioned portraiture and expand his artistic horizons. Even with the freedom offered by this mural work, Sargent still continued to produce portraits in rare instances, including one of Mrs. Fiske Warren, the recipient of our letter. This much praised 1903 oil painting, “Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and her daughter Rachel,” is currently held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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