Klismos Gallery

The Curtis Family in the Palazzo Barbaro, 1899. John Singer Sargent painted this conversation portrait piece of the Curtises who had purchased the crumbling Venetian palazzo in 1885. Presented as a gift to Mrs. Ariana Curtis, pictured in the foreground, the painting was refused as an affront to decorum based on her son’s casual pose and her own flushed face. The Curtises were responsible for the restoration of the palazzo which became an international hub of expat life in Venice hosting the likes of Claude Monet, Edith Wharton, and Henry James. Scroll to see a contemporary view of the room from the 1880s and how it appears today.

‘Study of Architecture’ by Sargent c. 1910, collection Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. I see a Medici coat of arms, but does anyone recognize where this was painted? Capriccio?

The result of nearly a decade of work, the ceiling of the staircase and rotunda of the @mfaboston were completed by John Singer Sargent in 1925. The night before the artist embarked from London for Boston to oversee the installation of the murals, he died in his sleep, never to see the American Sistine Chapel in its finished state. Atlas and the Hesperides is the painting center right. See yesterday’s post for that detail.

‘Atlas and the Hesperides’ by Sargent. Painted in 1925, the ten foot tondo is installed in the ceiling of @mfaboston in what is justifiably called the American Sistine Chapel

Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis. Perfect shadows on Tennessee’s largest and most elaborate courthouse. The James Gamble Rogers designed building and monumental seated sculptures by J. Scotsman J. William Rhyne were dedicated in 1910. Rhyne was also responsible for the sculptures Peace and Victory guarding Grant’s Tomb in New York City.

E Pluribus Unum