Fisherwomen Returning
Framed: 27 3/8 x 31 15/16 x 2 1/4 inches (69.55 x 81.1 x 5.72 cm)
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.
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.
Auguste Alexandre Hirsch (1833-1912), Paris, c. 1877-1912;
Bequeathed to his wife, Mme Hirsch, Paris, 1912;
By descent to Auguste Alexandre Hirsch's nephew, Raymond Bollack, New York;
Purchased at American and other modern paintings, watercolors, drawings, sculptures, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, May 19, 1965, lot 105, as Mussel Gatherers, by Louis (1903-1976) and Rheta A. (1905-2003) Sosland, Shawnee Mission, KS, 1965-1977;
Rheta Sosland's gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1977.
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.
