John Singer Sargent: Capri and Rosina Ferrara

"Portrait of Rosina Ferrara"
by J.S. Sargent

"In the autumn of 1878 John Singer Sargent spent several weeks at Capri. Located just off the coast of Sorrento, in the southern part of the Gulf of Naples, Italy, Capri is a small, idyllic island, characterized by olive trees, vineyards and fishing harbors which nestle within small, rocky bays. 

One English artist, Mr. Frank Hyde, had a studio in the old monastery of Santa Teresa. He had never met Sargent and had never seen his work, but hearing that an American artist had arrived and was staying at one of the inns, he called and found him with no place to work, but perfectly content and revelling in the beauty of the island. Mr. Hyde invited him to come and work at the monastery. There he provided him with a famous model called Rosina, 'an Ana Capri girl, a magnificent type, about seventeen years of age, her complexion a rich nut-brown, with a mass of blue-black hair, very beautiful and of an Arab type.' 

Over the course of that summer, Sargent painted around a dozen works featuring the mesmerizing native of Capri, one of which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1926. In 'A Capriote' he painted Rosina in the middle of an olive grove with her arms wrapped around an olive tree, a pose illustrating her connection with the wild and natural beauty of the island. One of the best of his 'quick' portraits from early on in his career is 'Rosina Ferrara: Head of a Capri Girl.' It is painted in oils on cardboard. He signed and dedicated it to Hyde while he was still on Capri, wanting to thank him for introducing him to this girl. Rosina also appears in 'Capri Girl on a Rooftop,' dancing to the beat of a local friend's tambourine. And again she dances for Sargent in 'Portrait of Rosina Ferrara,' where we see her in local dress with her hair tumbling down and smiling for the onlooker.

During the remainder of his stay he resided at the Marina Hotel, entertaining the artists on the island and organizing a fete in which the tarantella was danced on the flat roof of his hotel, to an orchestra of tambourines and guitars. It was a marvellous sight with the figures of the dancers silhouetted against the violet darkness of the night under the broad illumination of the moon, the surrounding silence, the faint winds from the sea.

Capri was just the beginning of Sargent's pursuit of the exotic. Later he would seek out similar locations across Spain, Italy and France, and other muses."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "John Sargent" by Evan Charteris and "A Capri Romance: John Singer Sargent and Rosina Ferarra' by Charlottle Stace in Daily Art Magazine.)