Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
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>
Black Brook
Purchased 1935
actions: postures and motions
adults
bank
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
contemplation
countries and continents
Courmayeur
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
France
individuals: female
named individuals
Ormond, Rose Marie
people
places
portraits
seasons
sitting
stream
summer
sunshine
water: inland
weather
woman
<p>The subject of this work is the artist’s niece, Rose-Marie Ormond, who was 15 when he painted her. She is shown by a stream in Aosta, northern Italy. Sargent captures the movement of light and shadow on the stream, yellow flowers and the fabric of Ormond’s dress with thick, loosely handled paint. Ormond was Sargent’s travel companion and one of his favourite subjects. She features in a number of his Alpine pictures, which he painted in an impressionistic style, either in oil or watercolour.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
8 August 2001 – 21 April 2003
2003-04-21
8 August 2001 – 21 April 2003
2003-04-21
2001-08-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-08
French Influence on British Art
Collection based display
11 October 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
11 October 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
2002-10-11
Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, USA)
2002-10-11
Whistler Sargent and Steer - Frist
Tate partnerships & programmes
31 January 2015 – 19 April 2015
2015-04-19
31 January 2015 – 19 April 2015
2015-04-19
2015-01-31
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery (Norwich, UK)
http://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk
2015-01-31
Homage to Manet
Loan-out
2 April 2015 – 25 September 2022
2022-09-25
28 March 2015
2015-03-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2015-04-02
Gallery 8
Collection based display
8 October 2023 – 7 July 2024
2024-07-07
8 October 2023 – 15 January 2024
2024-01-15
2023-10-08
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
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
8 October 2023 – 15 January 2024
2024-01-15
8 October 2023 – 15 January 2024
2024-01-15
2023-10-08
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2023-10-08
Sargent and Fashion
Loan-out
The Black Brook
support: 552 × 698 mm
frame: 775 × 930 × 70 mm
Purchased 1935
<div class="text">
<p>The subject of this work is the artist’s niece, Rose-Marie Ormond, who was 15 when he painted her. She is shown by a stream in Aosta, northern Italy. Sargent captures the movement of light and shadow on the stream, yellow flowers and the fabric of Ormond’s dress with thick, loosely handled paint. Ormond was Sargent’s travel companion and one of his favourite subjects. She features in a number of his Alpine pictures, which he painted in an impressionistic style, either in oil or watercolour.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2020-09-17T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<div class="text">
<p>
<b>N04783</b> THE BLACK BROOK c. 1908</p>
<p>Inscr. ‘John S. Sargent’ b.l.<br/>Canvas, 21 3/4×27 1/2 (55·5×67).<br/>Purchased from Barbizon House (Clarke Fund) 1935.<br/>
<i>Coll</i>: Mrs Francis Ormond; David Croal Thompson by 1935.<br/>
<i>Exh</i>: N.E.A.C., summer 1909 (50), as ‘The Black Brook’; Tate Gallery, June–October 1926; R.A., winter 1926 (301); (?) R.S.A., 1928 (374), as ‘The Brook’, lent by Mrs Ormond.<br/>
<i>Lit</i>: Downes, 1925, p.287; Charteris, 1927, pp.170, 289; <i>Barbizon House Record</i>, 1935, pp.5, 16, repr. as frontispiece; Mount, 1955, p.449; McKibbin, 1956, p.114; Mount, 1957, p.359.<br/>
<i>Repr</i>: <i>Connoisseur</i>, XCV, 1935, p.168.</p>
<p>The girl seated in the foreground of this painting is the artist's niece, Rose Marie Ormond (1893–1918), daughter of Mrs Francis Ormond and later wife of Robert Michel. She appears with her sister, Reine Ormond (Mrs Hugo Pitman), in another painting ‘The Brook’ in the possession of Mrs Francis Ormond's second son Mr F. Guillaume Ormond in July 1961 (information from Mr Hugo Pitman, 18 July 1961). The site in both pictures is almost identical, a mountain stream at the Chalets de Purtud, near Courmayeur, Val d'Aosta, just south-west of Mont Blanc and almost 5,000 ft. above sea-level.<br/>
<br/>The Tate painting has also been known as ‘The Brook’, but there is ample evidence to show it was the work exhibited at the N.E.A.C. in 1909 as ‘The Black Brook’, and it was purchased with that title in 1935. An old label on the stretcher reads: ‘J. S [torn] <i>The black brook, a girl seated by a stream Bought New English Art Club Exhibn 1909 Cleaned 1924</i> [rest torn].’ Descriptions of this painting which appear in the press-cuttings of the N.E.A.C. exhibition make it clear that the Tate picture is the one referred to. Its date is most likely to be 1908, not 1909, since it was the artist's custom to travel abroad in the late summer or early autumn, and the 1909 summer exhibition of the N.E.A.C. opened (according to an annotated catalogue in the Gallery archives) on the 22 May.<br/>
<br/>
<b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II</p>
</div>

Catalogue entry
2022-03-16T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults bank cities, towns, villages (non-UK) contemplation countries and continents Courmayeur emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas France individuals: female named individuals Ormond, Rose Marie people places portraits seasons sitting stream summer sunshine water: inland weather woman