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Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife

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Photography by Dwight Primiano

Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife

Artist (1856 - 1925)
Date1885
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions20 1/4 x 24 1/4 in. (51.4 x 61.6 cm)
Framed: 26 1/4 in. × 30 1/2 in. × 2 in.
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2005.3
Signedu.l., in black paint : To R. L. Stevenson, his friend John S. Sargent 1885
Accession number 2005.3
On View
Not on view
Collections
ProvenanceRobert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]; Frances Osbourne Stevenson [1840-1914] (his wife), Vailima, Samoa; Isobel Osbourne Strong [1858-1953] (her daughter), Santa Barbara, CA; (Anderson Auction Company, New York, NY), November 24, 1914, lot 428, illustrated; purchased by Helen Hay Whitney [1875-1944], New York, NY, 1914; by bequest to John Hay Whitney [1904-1982] (her son), New York, NY, 1944; to Betsey Cushing Whitney [1908-1998] (his wife), New York, NY, 1982; (Sotheby's, New York, NY), May 19, 2004, lot 12; purchased by Stephen A. Wynn [b. 1942], Las Vegas, NV, 2004; (Sotheby's Inc., New York, NY), 2005; purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2005
Label TextPainted in England by American expatriate artist John Singer Sargent, this work presents an intimate, if not awkward, view of the author Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife, Fanny. Stevenson remarked, “It is, I think, excellent, but is too eccentric to be exhibited. I am at one extreme corner; my wife in this wild dress, and looking like a ghost, is at the extreme other end. All this is touched in lovely, with that witty touch of Sargent’s; but of course, it looks damn queer as a whole.”

Este retrato fue pintado en Inglaterra por el artista estadounidense, expatriado, John Singer Sargent y representa una visión íntima, sino extraña, del escritor Robert Louis Stevenson y su esposa, Fanny. Stevenson expresó: “Creo que es excelente, pero muy excéntrico para ser exhibido. Yo estoy en un extremo; mi esposa, quien lleva ese vestido extravagante y parece un fantasma, está en el otro […] Todo ello con un estilo agradable, con ese toque ingenioso de Sargent; pero, por supuesto, es muy extraño en general”.

Markingsverso, on backing board: many old labels