Tyrolese Interior

In the summer of 1914 Sargent, an American famous for flattering portraits of the rich, was on holiday in the Austrian Tyrol when the war began. Britain and France soon declared war on Austria, and he found himself an enemy alien, unable to simply pack up and go home. He stayed on into the autumn, and instead of glittering sitters he painted a peasant family at their midday meal in an old castle turned into farm quarters. The room is dark, the light cool and thin, the faces closed and pensive. Viewers have long read it as a household waiting for word of a young man sent to the front. Sargent thought well of it, calling it the best oil picture he made in the Tyrol that summer, before he managed to leave for home.