painting to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in memory of their father. Author Bill Brown has commented on what he calls the "uncanny qualities" of the depiction of the girls and the vases, which he asserts promote "an indeterminate ontology [because of] the inability to distinguish between the animate and the inanimate." Brown claims that the painting offers a portrait of vases and a still life of the girls, and that this "discloses a dialectic of person and thing." Notes References Brown, Bill. A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature, Chicago University Press, Gallati, Barbara Dayer. Great Expectations: John Singer Sargent Painting Children, Bulfinch 2004 Kilmurray, Elizabeth, Ormond, Richard. John Singer Sargent. Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd, 1999. Marshall, Megan. "Model Children: The story of John Singer Sargent's painting of a family of enigmatic girls", The New York Times Book Review (December 13, 2009), p. 22 Prettejohn, Elizabeth. "Interpreting Sargent". Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1998. Tinterow, Gary, Lacambre, Geneviève. Manet/Velazquéz: The French Taste for Spanish Painting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003. External links Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museo Nacional del Prado, Invited work: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, Sargent Image of the painting, and an essay on it from jssgallery.org Japanese vases, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston "Sargent's Daughters: Biography of a Painting" 1882 paintings 19th-century portraits Group portraits by American artists Paintings by John Singer Sargent Paintings of children Paintings in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Portraits of women