John Singer Sargent: Spanish Treasures

"El Jaleo" by John Singer Sargent

"In the autumn of 1879 John Singer Sargent paid his second visit to Spain in the company of two French painters, MM. Daux and Bac. The party rode through the researched Spanish music and folk songs. It may be of interest to some to know that there were four pieces which he preferred, even sending for them from Boston in 1916, so that Isabella Stewart Gardner might have the benefit of them.

This expedition to Spain and Morocco resulted in several of his well-known works - among them 'Fumee d'Ambre Gris,' 'The Alhambra,' 'The Court of the Lions,' 'Spanish Beggar Girl,' 'Spanish Courtyard,' 'El Jaleo' and the 'Spanish Dance,' which, like so much of his early works, are now only to be seen in America.

'El Jaleo' [roughly translated as 'The Ruckus'] was subsequently bought at the 1882 Paris Salon. A critic for 'Le Figaro' called the painting 'one of the most original and strongest works of the present Salon.' The purchaser was Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge, a relative of Isabella Stewart Gardner, who told her that the picture should one day be hers.

Anticipating the day when the picture would be hers, she built an alcove in her music-room at Fenway Court, framed in a Moorish arch, and along the floor arranged a row of electric lights which would reproduce, as far as possible, the conditions under which the picture had originally been painted. Mr. Coolidge, when he saw these preparations, accelerated his generous intentions and handed the picture over to be installed in this flattering environment. Sargent also presented her with an album of pencil drawings he had made as preparatory sketches for the work and twenty-two flamenco records, expressing strong preferences for certain singers and types of songs."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "John Sargent" by Evan Charteris and the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum website.)