this lady's children the following year. Many, or rather most, of Mr.
Sargent's sitters have been French, and he has studied the physiognomy
of this nation so attentively that a little of it perhaps remains in
the brush with which to-day, more than in his first years, he represents
other types. I have alluded to his superb "Docteur Pozzi," to whose very
handsome, still youthful head and slightly artificial posture he has
given so fine a French cast that he might be excused if he should, even
on remoter pretexts, find himself reverting to it. This gentleman stands
up in his brilliant red dressing-gown with the _prestance_ of a princely
Vandyck. I should like to commemorate the portrait of a lady of a
certain age and of an equally certain interest of appearance--a lady
in black, with black hair, a black hat and a vast feather, which
was displayed at that entertaining little annual exhibition of the
"Mirlitons," in the Place Vendome. With the exquisite modelling of its
face (no one better than Mr. Sargent understands the beauty that resides
in exceeding fineness), this head remains in my mind as a masterly
rendering of the look of experience--such experience as may be
attributed to a woman slightly faded and eminently distinguished.
Subject and treatment in this valuable piece are of an equal interest,
and in the latter there is an element of positive sympathy which is not
always in a high degree the sign of Mr. Sargent's work. What shall I say
of the remarkable canvas which, on the occasion of the Salon of 1884,
brought the critics about our artist's ears, the already celebrated
portrait of "Madame G.?" It is an experiment of a highly original kind,
and the painter has had in the case, in regard to what Mr. Ruskin would
call the "rightness" of his attempt, the courage of his opinion. A
contestable beauty, according to Parisian fame, the lady stands upright
beside a table on which her right arm rests, with her body almost
fronting the spectator and her face in complete profile. She wears an
entirely sleeveless dress of black satin, against which her admirable
left arm detaches itself; the line of her harmonious profile has a
sharpness which Mr. Sargent does not always seek, and the crescent of
Diana, an ornament in diamonds, rests on her singular head. This work
had not the good-fortune to please the public at large, and I believe it
even excited a kind of unreasoned scandal--an idea sufficiently amusing
in the light of som