Padre Sebastiano

By 1904 Sargent was worn out by the endless commissions for grand society portraits and had begun escaping on painting holidays. On one, at Giomein, a village high in the Italian Alps, he met a local priest, Padre Sebastiano, who spent his time botanising, collecting and studying the mountain flowers. Instead of a formal pose, Sargent painted him at home in a cluttered room, bent over a table strewn with plants, making notes on what he had found. The dark cassock anchors a scene otherwise full of scattered pots, papers and cut blooms, a picture of a man doing exactly what he loved.