Шахматная партия

By 1907 John Singer Sargent was the most sought-after portrait painter in the English-speaking world, and thoroughly sick of it. He had begun turning away the wealthy clients who wanted their likenesses, and escaped most summers to the mountains with a circle of family and friends. This scene comes from one such trip, to Purtud in the Val d'Aosta, high in the Alps near the Italian border. Instead of a duchess in satin, he paints two of his companions stretched out in the open air over a chessboard, one of them leaning intently in, the whole thing loose and quickly brushed. The two players are from his own travelling party of nieces and friends, set down for his own pleasure rather than for a fee.