Portrait of Ralph Curtis on the Beach at Scheveningen

In the summer of 1880 Sargent was 24 and not yet the society portraitist he would become. He had come to Holland partly to study Frans Hals, the old Haarlem master of the quick, loaded brushstroke, and this little panel is what he did on his days off. His cousin Ralph Curtis lies sprawled on the sand at Scheveningen, a Dutch seaside resort, hat pulled over his face, dozing in the wind. Sargent seems to have painted it right there on the beach. Look closely and you can still find grains of sand caught in the paint, blown into it while it was wet.