La señora Hugh Hammersley

By 1892 Sargent had left Paris behind, where a daring portrait had damaged his reputation, and was rebuilding a career in London. Portraits like this one were how he did it. Mary Hammersley was a banker's wife and a well-known London hostess, and Sargent painted her perched forward on the edge of a sofa, mid-conversation, as if she has just turned to answer you. When he exhibited it in London in 1893, reviewers fixed on the dress, a vivid rose velvet that many called daring for its colour. The animation of the pose was deliberate. He wanted English sitters to see he could make a portrait feel alive rather than posed. Her husband later sold it, on Sargent's own suggestion, to an American collector.