Im Urlaub, Norwegen

In the summer of 1901 Sargent went salmon fishing in the Sundal valley in Norway with George McCulloch, who had made a fortune in Australian mining and spent it on pictures, and with McCulloch's son Alexander, a schoolboy at Winchester. Sargent began by painting the boy upright, standing with a landing net. He decided it looked contrived, turned the canvas on its side and painted the new picture straight over the old one. So Alexander ends up stretched along a rock by the river, net and spear beside him and two dead salmon at his feet. Sargent was taking on fewer commissioned portraits by then and more of this kind of thing, people caught outdoors among friends. Alexander stayed athletic. In 1908 he took the silver medal in the single sculls at the London Olympics.