Louis de Fourcaud

Sargent painted this small portrait in 1884, the year everything went wrong for him in Paris. That spring his full-length of a society beauty, now known as Madame X, caused such a scandal at the Salon that he soon gave up on the city and moved to London. This is a different Sargent altogether, unhurried and affectionate. Louis de Fourcaud was an art critic and a friend, and Sargent inscribed the canvas across the top as a token of friendship. He gives him a dark coat against a plain ground and lets the brush move loosely, catching the beard and the alert, slightly wary eyes in a few sure strokes. It stayed with the sitter's family for decades before it entered a museum.