id: 160289 accession number: 1998.168 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1998.168 updated: 2022-10-29 16:28:37.204000 Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis, 1898. John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Oil on canvas; framed: 249 x 134 x 9.5 cm (98 1/16 x 52 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.); unframed: 219.3 x 104.8 cm (86 5/16 x 41 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1998.168 title: Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1898 creation date earliest: 1898 creation date latest: 1898 current location: 208 American Gilded Age and Realism creditline: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund copyright: --- culture: America, 19th century technique: oil on canvas department: American Painting and Sculpture collection: American - Painting type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925) - artist --- measurements: Framed: 249 x 134 x 9.5 cm (98 1/16 x 52 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 219.3 x 104.8 cm (86 5/16 x 41 1/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Inscribed: To Ralph and Mrs. Ralph, John S. Sargent 1898 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Sargent and Italy opening date: 2002-09-29T00:00:00 Sargent and Italy. Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara (Galleria d'Arte Moderna et Contemporanea) (September 29, 2002-January 6, 2003); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (February 9-May 11, 2003); Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO (June 21-September 14, 2003). title: Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle opening date: 2004-04-20T00:00:00 Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA (organizer) (April 20-August 15, 2004). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Ferrara, Italy, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Sargent and Italy (22 September 2002-6 January 2003); traveled to Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2 February-11 May 2003); to Denver, Denver Art Museum (28 June-21 September 2003); illus. p. 165.
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle (21 April-15 August 2004); illus. fig. 48, p. 73, listed p. 275 as Lisa Curtis; pp. 70-75. --- PROVENANCE The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio date: 1998- footnotes: citations: (Christie’s, New York, Dec. 29, 1998, private treaty sale to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: 1998 footnotes: citations: Patricia Curtis Viganò, Venice, Italy; Lisa Marjorie Curtis de Beaumont, France; and Ralph D. Curtis, Venice, Italy date: Probably 1973 - probably 1998 footnotes: citations: Ralph Wormeley Curtis, Jr. [1909-1973] Venice, Italy, and Paris, France, by descent to his children Patricia Curtis Viganò, Lisa Marjorie Curtis de Beaumont, and Ralph D. Curtis date: Probably 1936 - probably 1973 footnotes: citations: Sylvia Curtis Steinert [1899-1981], Paris and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France, to her brother, Ralph Wormeley Curtis, Jr. date: Probably 1933 - probably 1936 footnotes: * The painting apparently resided in the Villa Sylvia, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, until Sylvia Curtis Steinert sold the property upon her divorce in 1936. Subsequently it was transferred to her brother, who resided in the family home at the Palazzo Barbaro, Venice; he is listed as the painting’s owner when it was published in 1956 and 1970. According to Patricia Curtis Viganò, the art in the Palazzo Barbaro was crated and stored at the Doge’s Palace in Venice for safekeeping during the Second World War. citations: Ralph Wormeley Curtis [1854-1922] and Lisette De Wolf Colt Curtis [1867-1933], Paris and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France, probably by descent to their daughter Sylvia Curtis Steinert date: 1898 - probably 1933 footnotes: * The painting, inscribed “To Ralph and Mrs. Ralph / John S. Sargent 1898,” was a wedding gift from Sargent, Ralph Wormeley Curtis’s distant cousin. The portrait was photographed in situ at the Villa Sylvia, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat around 1927. citations: --- fun fact: Although known as John Singer Sargent today, he almost never used his middle name during his lifetime. digital description: wall description: One of the most sought-after painters of his era, Sargent achieved considerable critical and financial success portraying cosmopolitan members of high society on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, the artist depicts an acquaintance—a relative of the Colt firearms family—who had recently married his distant cousin Ralph. In her portrait, Curtis wears an elegant satin dress and poses as if she were welcoming guests into her palatial Venetian home. The painting apparently was a wedding gift to the couple by the artist; its inscription at the top right reads, "To Ralph and Mrs. Ralph, John S. Sargent 1898." --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Eric Widing, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, March 20, 2013, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Berendt, John. The City of Falling Angels. 2005. page number: url: Ormond, Richard. John Singer Sargent: Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. page number: url:
McKibben, David, Sargent’s Boston, with an Essay & a Biographical Summary & A Complete Check List of Sargent’s Portraits. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1956. page number: url: Cox, E.H.M., “Houses & Gardens of the Riviera: Villa Sylvia, Cap Ferrat, The Home of Mrs. Lisa Curtis, Country Life 61 (January 15, 1927): 91 page number: url: Downes, William Howe. John S. Sargent: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1925. page number: url: Cleveland Museum of Art, “Little-Known Masterpiece by John Singer Sargent Acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art,” November 27, 1998, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. page number: url: https://archive.org/details/cmapr4224 Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. page number: Reproduced: p. 106 - 107 url: Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 51 url: Cleveland Museum of Art. Masterworks on Loan: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Cleveland Museum of Art: July Through September 2016. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016. page number: Reproduced: p. 13 url: Mamoli Zorzi, Rosella. Ralph W. Curtis, un Pittore Americano a Venezia: Biografia. Venezia Lido: Supernova, 2019. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 116, fig. 108 url: --- IMAGES