Mademoiselle Suzanne Poirson

Sargent painted this in Paris in 1884, while he was still building a name among the city's wealthy American families. Suzanne Poirson was the daughter of an American engineer settled in France, and Sargent shows her as a poised young woman with a bright red flower at her waist, set against a dark, plain ground. He gives her a slightly turned, restless pose rather than a stiff formal one, the sort of lifelike informality that made his portraits feel modern to sitters used to something starchier. He worked quickly and wet, building the face in a few confident passes. The picture has stayed in private hands, which is part of why it is far less known than the grand society portraits he painted that very same year.