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Neapolitan Children Bathing

John Singer Sargent

American, 1856–1925

Neapolitan Children Bathing

1879

Sargent developed this painting from pencil sketches and oil studies made during his travels in southern Italy. Local children bask in the heat of a lazy summer’s day. A young boy wearing a flotation device looks toward the sea, where the head of a swimmer bobs above the surface. Thinly applied washes of blue and green indicate the calm water, while thicker strokes suggest the texture of cresting waves and grainy sand.

Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 10 9/16 x 16 3/16 in. (26.8 x 41.1 cm) Frame: 16 1/8 x 21 3/4 x 2 1/4 in. (41 x 55.2 x 5.7 cm)
Object Number 1955.852
Acquisition Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status Off View

Image Caption

John Singer Sargent, Neapolitan Children Bathing, 1879, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.852

Select Bibliography

Ormond, Richard and Elaine Kilmurray. Figures and Landscapes, 1874-1882. Vol. IV of John Singer Sargent: Complete Paintings. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. 2006. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1958. Taft Museum. Small Paintings from Famous Collections. Exhibition catalogue. Cincinnati: The Taft Museum, 1981. Simpson, Marc, et al. Uncanny Spectacle: The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent. Exhibition catalogue. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1997. Anonymous. "The Society of American Artists."New York Tribune, 8 March 1879. Anonymous. "The Society of American Artists, I" New York World, 8 March 1879. Anonymous. "The Academy Exhibition." Appleton's Art Journal 5 (1879). Anonymous. "The Academy Exhibition." New York Evening Post (29 March 1879): 45. Anonymous. "The Academy Exhibition." New York Daily Graphic 29 March 1879. Anonymous. "The Academy Exhibition." The New York World, 30 March 1879. Anonymous. "Fine Arts: 54th Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design, 2nd Notice." New York Herald, 31 March 1879. Anonymous. "Fine Arts: 54th Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design, 3rd Notice." New York Herald, 1 April 1879. Anonymous. "National Academy of Design: 54th Annual Exhibition" New York Tribune, 1 April 1879. Anonymous. "The Spring ExhibitionNational Academy of Design, 2nd Notice." The Art Interchange 2 (16 April 1879). Anonymous. "The Academy Exhibition." New York Times, 2 May 1879. Anonymous. "Fine Arts: Exhibition of the Academy of Design, II." The Nation 18 (May 22, 1879). Strahan, Edward. "The Art Gallery: The National Academy of Design, 1st Notice." The Art Amateur 1, no. 1 (June 1879): 4–5. Anonymous. "Two New York Exhibitions." Atlantic Monthly 43, no. 60 (June 1879): 777–87. Anonymous. "The Academy Exhibition." The Art Journal New Series 5 (1879). Brownell, W. C. "The Younger Painters of America." Scribner's Monthly 20, no. 1 (May 1880): 1–16. Greta. "John S. Sargent." The Art Amateur 2, no. 6 (May 1880): 118. Van Oost, John W. "My Notebooks." The Art Amateur 46, no 3 (February 1902). Anonymous. "Studio Talk." The Studio 26 (June 1902). Cortissoz, Royal. "The Field of Art." Scribner's Magazine 75 (March 1924): 34552. Downes, William Howe. John S. Sargent: His Life and Work. London: Thornton & Butterworth, 1926. Gerwig, Henrietta. Fifty Famous Painters. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1926. Charteris, Evan. John Sargent. London: William Heineman, Ltd., 1927. McKibbin, David. Sargent's Boston. Exhibition catalogue. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1956. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Seven: The Regency and Louis XVI Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1957. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1958. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Lomax, James, and Richard Ormond. John Singer Sargent and the Edwardian Age. Exhibition catalogue. Leeds, England: Leeds Art Galleries; Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1979. Novak, Barbara. American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Bantel, Linda. The Alice M. Kaplan Collection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Shore, Leslie, ed. Small Paintings of the Masters. New York: Woodbine Books, 1980. Fairbrother, Trevor J. "A Private Album: John Singer Sargent's Drawings of Nude Male Models." Arts Magazine 56 (December 1981). Robertson, Meg. "John Singer Sargent: His Early Success in America, 1878-1879." Archives of American Art Journal 22, no. 4 (1982): 20–26. Fairbrother, Trevor J. John Singer Sargent and America. Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1981. New York: Garland Publishing, 1986. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Hills, Patricia. John Singer Sargent. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1986. Harris, Jean C., Steve Kern, and Bill Stern. Lasting Impressions: French and American Impressionism from New England Museums. Exhibition catalogue. Springfield, MA: Museum of Fine Arts, 1988. Conrads, Margaret C. American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Simpson, Marc. "Robert Sterling Clark as a Collector of Sargent." The Magazine Antiques 62, no. 4 (October 1997): 5547. Herdrich, Stephenie L., and H. Barbara Weinberg. American Drawings and Watercolors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: John Singer Sargent. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2000. Conrads, Margaret C. Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s. Exhibition catalogue. Princeton: Princeton University Press in conjunction with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2001. Pierce, Patricia Jobe. Painters of the American Beach. Upcoming. Dearinger, David B, ed. Rave Reviews: American Art and Its Critics, 1826-1925. Exhibition catalogue. New York: National Academy of Design, 2000. Ormond, Richard. John Singer Sargent: Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors. London: Phaidon Press, 1970. Gallati, Barbara Dayer. Great Expectations: John Singer Sargent Painting Children. Exhibition catalogue. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum in association with Bulfinch Press, 2004. Molta, Bianca C. "Finding Their Places: John Singer Sargent's Personal Views as Reflected in The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit." Resolution: Providence College Art Journal (2011). Lazevnick, Ashley. Listening In: Musicality in John Singer Sargent's Early Pictures. Course paper, Art History 555: John Singer Sargent, Graduate Program in the History of Art, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 2011. Lazevnick, Ashley. Making Noise in Neapolitan Children Bathing; and Overhearing Sargent. Course paper, Art History 555: John Singer Sargent, Graduate Program in the History of Art, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 2011. Cash, Sarah, ed. Sargent and the Sea. Exhibition catalogue. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2009. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Paintings on Exhibition, July 1968. Exhibition brochure. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1968. Anonymous. "Fine Art. Society of American Artists. Third Annual Exhibition [Second Notice]." New York Tribune, 25 March 1880. Conforti, Michael, et al. The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven: distributed by Yale University Press, 2006. Coe Kerr Gallery. John Singer Sargent: His Own Work. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Coe Kerr Gallery, 1980.

Provenance

George Millar Williamson (1849–1921), New York (by March 1879); Frederick J. Williamson, by descent; [M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 19 December 1922, sold to Clark, 29 December 1923]; Robert Sterling Clark (1923-1955); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.

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