Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd White (Signora Henry White)

Sargent painted this large portrait in 1882 and 1883, at the very moment he was also working on the picture that would nearly wreck his Paris career: the portrait of Virginie Gautreau, the notorious Madame X. Margaret White, called Daisy, was an American socialite married to a diplomat, and she had commissioned her portrait after admiring a Sargent at the Salon. She sat only a few times before leaving Paris for the south of France, so the painter packed up the enormous canvas and followed her to Nice to keep working on it. She stands in a pale satin gown against a dim interior, one gloved hand resting lightly, the fabric caught in Sargent's fast, sure strokes. He was 27.