ヘレン・シアーズ

Sargent came to Boston in 1895 to install the first of his murals in the new public library, and while he was in town he painted the six-year-old daughter of a friend. He set Helen Sears high in a tall narrow canvas, seen slightly from above, her pale dress bright against a dark red carpet, looking away from him.

Her mother, Sarah Choate Sears, was a painter and collector who had taken up photography a few years earlier and was becoming serious about it. She sent Sargent one of her own photographs of Helen, in the same dress and the same shoes. He wrote back that it made him want to return to Boston and put his umbrella through his portrait, and asked how an unfortunate painter was meant to rival a photograph taken by a mother, absolute truth combined with absolute feeling.

Helen inherited the painting in 1935 and gave it to the Museum of Fine Arts 20 years later.