JOHN SINGER SARGENT

Sargent painted this portrait of Isabella Gardner shortly after she had suffered a debilitating stroke. She described this work as an informal sketch, and called it “a water-colour, not meant, I hope, to look like me.” The calmness of her pose and shroud-like swath of white fabric express an otherworldliness that bears little resemblance to her previous ebullient character. This is the last portrait of Gardner before her death in 1924.