Fisherwomen Returning

Artist John Singer Sargent (American, 1856 - 1925)

Dateca. 1877

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 19 5/8 x 24 1/4 inches (49.85 x 61.6 cm)
Framed: 27 3/8 x 31 15/16 x 2 1/4 inches (69.55 x 81.1 x 5.72 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Louis Sosland

Object numberF77-36/1

SignedNone

On View

Not on view

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionGroup of darkly and heavily clad figures carrying baskets. A group of sailboats and the dim skyline of a city on the horizon.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, May 14–19, 1965, no. 105 (as Mussel Gatherers).

Painting and Sculpture from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Sosland, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, September 17–December 1, 1968 (traveled), no. 133 (Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, as Mussel Gatherers) and no. 32 (Mulvane Art Center, Washburn University, Topeka, Kans., as Mussel Gatherers).

Sargent and the Sea, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 12, 2009–January 3, 2010; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 14–May 23, 2010; Royal Academy of Arts, London, July 10–September 26, 2010, unnumbered.

Gallery Label

Born in Italy to expatriate Philadelphians, John Singer Sargent maintained an exceptionally cosmopolitan life and career. Oyster Gatherers Returning dates to his years of initial study in France, where the aspiring artist began to develop the painterly style for which he became revered.

Breaking temporarily from his training, Sargent ventured to the coastal village of Cançale, which attracted scores of artists for its rustic, inexpensive charms. Showing a huddled mass of fisherfolk traveling home with a day's catch, Oyster Gatherers Returning is one of several studies that culminated in two more cheerful versions of the scene (Corcoran Gallery of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). This study's relatively coarse appearance suggests that Sargent executed it on site.

Provenance

To Auguste Alexandre Hirsch, Paris, c. 1877;

to Mme Hirsch (widow of Auguste Alexandre Hirsch), Paris, by bequest, 1912;

to Raymond Bollack (nephew of Auguste Alexandre Hirsch), New York, by descent;

to (Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 19 May 1965, lot 105 [as "Mussel Gatherers"]);

to Louis and Rheta A. Sosland, Shawnee Mission, Kans., 1965;

to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., 1977.

Published References

Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, May 19, 1965, 25 (repro., as Mussel Gatherers).

Painting and Sculpture from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Sosland, exh. cat. (Lincoln: Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, 1968), unpaginated (as Mussel Gatherers).

Price Profile on All Works by John Singer Sargent (Montclair, N.J.: Art Reference Gallery, 1973), iii, 13 (as Mussel Gatherers).

John Singer Sargent: His Own Work, exh. cat. (New York: Coe Kerr Gallery and Wittenborn Art Books, 1980), unpaginated (as Mussel Gatherers).

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 124 (as Mussel Gatherers).

Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: Complete Paintings, vol. 4, Figures and Landscapes, 1874–1882 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 49, 86, 121, 387, 397.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 21, 473-75 (repro.), 2: 211 (repro.).

Sarah Cash, ed. Sargent and the Sea, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 97, 110 (repro.), 111-113 (repro. detail), 152n27.

Barrymore Laurence Scherer, “Sargent’s Sea Fever,” The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2009, http://online.wsj.com.

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