Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/john-singer-sargent-475" aria-label="More by John Singer Sargent" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">John Singer Sargent</a>
Miss Priestley
Presented by Miss Emily Sargent in memory of her brother through the Art Fund 1929
adults
clothing and personal items
dress: fantasy/fancy
dress: nations/regions
exotic
Far East
flower
individuals: female
make-up
named individuals
objects
people
plants and flowers
portraits
Priestley, Flora
society
woman
<p>By the early 1890s Sargent’s dazzlingly fluid style was taking London by storm. This portrait of his friend, Miss Flora Priestley, is typical of the vitality and glamour that Sargent brought to portraiture, as well as his ability to record figures with a few vigorous brush strokes. Miss Priestley exemplifies the dark, striking physical type that appeared in Sargent’s work throughout his career. The stark contrast of her black hair with the whiteness of her face is accentuated by the muddy green of the dress and background. Equally dramatic is the scarlet red of her lips matched by the flowers at her chest.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
24 November 2007 – 4 May 2008
2008-05-04
24 November 2007 – 4 May 2008
2008-05-04
2007-11-24
Museo di Santa Giulia (Brescia, Italy)
2007-11-24
America! Storie di pittura dal Nuovo Mondo
Loan-out
2 March 2012 – 15 July 2012
2012-07-15
2 March 2012 – 15 July 2012
2012-07-15
2012-03-02
Palazzo Strozzi (Florence, Italy)
2012-03-02
Americans in Florence
Loan-out
1 July 2018 – 30 September 2018
2018-09-30
1 July 2018 – 30 September 2018
2018-09-30
2018-07-01
The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, USA)
http://www.artic.edu/aic
2018-07-01
John Singer Sargent and Chicago's Gilded Age
Loan-out
8 October 2023 – 7 July 2024
2024-07-07
21 February 2024 – 7 July 2024
2024-07-07
2024-02-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-10-08
Sargent and Fashion
Exhibition
Miss Priestley
support: 914 × 635 mm
frame: 1140 × 853 × 112 mm
Presented by Miss Emily Sargent in memory of her brother through the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 1929
<div class="para1">
<span class="text0">By the early 1890s Sargent’s dazzlingly fluid      style was taking London by storm. This <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> of his friend, Miss Flora      Priestley, is typical of the vitality and glamour that Sargent brought to      portraiture, as well as his ability to  record figures with a few vigorous  
brush strokes. </span><span class="text15">Miss Priestley</span><span class="text0"> exemplifies the dark, striking physical type that      appeared in Sargent’s work throughout his career. The stark contrast      of her black hair with the whiteness of her face is accentuated by the      muddy green of the dress and background. Equally dramatic is the scarlet      red of her lips matched  by the flowers at her chest.  </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-08-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N04465</b> MISS PRIESTLEY <i>c.</i> 1889</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inscr. ‘John S. Sargent’ t.r.
<br/>Canvas, 36×25 (91·5×64).
<br/>Presented by Miss Emily Sargent in memory of her brother through the National Art-Collections Fund 1929.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> R.A., winter 1926 (40); York, March–May 1926 (44); Tate Gallery, June–October 1926; R.S.A., 1928 (196 or 371).
<br/><i>Lit:</i> Downes, 1925, pp.28, 29, 40, 176–7; Charteris, 1927, pp.99, 156, 261; <i>N.A.C.F. Report 1929</i>, 1930, p.44, repr. facing p.44; Mount, 1955, p.432, repr. p.144; McKibbin, 1956, p.117 (erroneously as given to the Tate Gallery by Mrs Ormond and painted 1899); Mount, 1957, p.340; Mount, <i>Art Quarterly</i>, XXVI, 1963, p.405.
<br/><i>Repr.</i> National Gallery, Millbank [Tate Gallery], <i>Review of Acquisitions 1927–29 </i>, 1930, p.43.</p>
<p>Miss Flora Priestley was born in Florence 20 January 1859, the daughter of Augusta Le Poer Trench and her first husband, the Rev. William Henry Priestley, Chaplain of the English Church, Nice (information transmitted by McKibbin from Robert Childers Barton of Glendalough House, Annamoe, County Wicklow, 5 July 1961). Miss Priestley was said by Barton to have met Sargent when they were children at Nice, but recently, in conversations with Mount, he thought it more likely that they first met in Paris in 1882, when student (letter to compiler from Mount, 15 May 1963). Sargent painted at least four, possibly five <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a> of her, the first of which is dated variously as 1884 or 1885. (Compare the catalogues of McKibbin and Mount: McKibbin (p.117) lists five oils (including a double portrait with Mrs Ormond), a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> and a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a>, and the descriptions he gives make it clear that they are all regarded as different works.) The Tate portrait belongs to the group painted in the spring and summer of 1889 at Fladbury Rectory.</p>
<p>Charteris (<i>op. cit.</i>, p.156) identifies one of these portraits with the ‘Portrait of a Lady’ exhibited at the R.A., 1896 (402). Reviews of that year's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a> exhibition, published in the <i>Art Journal</i>, 1896, p.181, and in the <i>Studio</i>, VIII, 1896, p.111, both refer to the red, or crimson, cloak worn by the sitter and the <i>Art Journal</i> reviewer also noted her white dress. These descriptions do not fit the Tate portrait, where the sitter wears a pinky-violet shot-silk dress. Charteris quotes a criticism of the Academy picture written by George Moore (probably in <i>The Speaker</i>), in which the description of the sitter's pale complexion and arched eyebrows could be regarded as corroborative evidence of the identification with Miss Priestley. In the National Gallery, Millbank [Tate Gallery], <i>Review of the Acquisitions 1927–29</i>, 1930, p.23, the compiler noted that the 1896 R.A. exhibit was a portrait of Miss Priestley painted at Nice between 1879 and 1882, but this information is nowhere else recorded or corroborated. Mount is inclined to doubt that the 1896 portrait was of Miss Priestley, and knows of no picture of her in a white dress and red cloak.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-06T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults clothing and personal items dress: fantasy/fancy dress: nations/regions exotic Far East flower individuals: female make-up named individuals objects people plants and flowers portraits Priestley, Flora society woman