John Singer Sargent: His Father's Death

"Self-Portrait," 1907 by J.S. Sargent

"In the early part of 1888 John Singer Sargent was back in England. His family had spent the winter in Florence, where his father had been struck down by a paralytic stroke. In the spring it was decided to bring him to England, and a house was leased for the summer at Calcot, Reading. Such time as he could spare from his work in London Sargent now spent with his family at Calcot. In the winter they moved to Bournemouth, to a house near Skerryvore, the former home of Robert Louis Stevenson. It was here in April, 1889, that FitzWilliam died.

Since his seizure at Florence Sargent's father had been an invalid, his contacts with the world broken, his memory affected, and his capacity for movement gravely impaired. Sargent watched over him with a 'lovely happiness of temper' and constant solicitude. The last months of the father's life were eased by the ministering care of the son. 

Yet Sargent did not, as a rule, suffer invalids gladly. By nature robust, he was so seldom ill himself that he was inclined to think others were apt to surrender too easily. When, in later years, he was subject himself to inroads of influenza he was singularly obstinate in working up to the last possible moment, then only to pursue unaided methods of salvation in the austere surroundings of his Tite Street bedroom. 

But those whose memories of him go back to 1889 recall vividly the rare quality of the tenderness with which he soothed the last months of his father's life. Before his father's death he had taken the vicarage at Fladbury, and there the succeeding summer was spent by the family."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "John Sargent" by Evan Charteris.)