Resting

c. 1875

This study shows a young woman napping against a haystack, shaded from the bright sunshine by the brim of her straw hat. Marks drawn through the paint with the reverse end of the artist’s brush suggest the texture of the hay. Although famous for his society portraits, Sargent depicted his family and friends more informally. This young woman may be his cousin, painted when Sargent joined his family on the Brittany coast in the summer of 1875.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	8 1/2 x 10 9/16 in. (21.6 x 26.8 cm) Frame: 13 1/2 x 15 7/16 x 2 in. (34.3 x 39.2 x 5.1 cm)
Object Number	1955.579
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	Off View

Image Caption

John Singer Sargent, Resting, c. 1875, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.579

Select Bibliography

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. American Impressionist Painters. Exh. cat. Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama: 1978. Downes, William Howe. John S. Sargent: His Life and Work. London: Thornton & Butterworth, 1926. Charteris, Evan. John Sargent. London: William Heineman, Ltd., 1927. Mount, Charles Merrill. John Singer Sargent: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1955. Adlow, Dorothy. Untitled article. Christian Science Monitor 56, no. 47 (21 January 1964). 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. Ratcliff, Carter. John Singer Sargent. New York: Abbeville Press, 1982. 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. Olson, Stanley, Warren Adelson, and Richard L. Ormond. Sargent at Broadway: The Impressionist Years. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Coe Kerr Gallery, 1986. Olson, Stanley. John Singer Sargent: His Portrait. London: Macmillan, 1986. 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. Warren Adelson et al.. Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes.. New York: Abbeville Press.. 1997.. Warren Adelson et al.. Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes.. New York: Abbeville Press.. 1997.. [Rowe, Elizabeth]. The Age of Elegance: The Paintings of John Singer Sargent. London: Phaidon Press. 1996. 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. Ormond, Richard. John Singer Sargent: Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors. London: Phaidon Press, 1970. Ormond, Richard and Elaine Kilmurray. John Singer Sargent: Complete Paintings. Vol. 1, The Early Portraits. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Adelson, Warren, et al. Sargent's Venice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. McKibbin, David. Sargent's Boston. Exhibition catalogue. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1956. Dupêcher, Natalie. Resting, Verbal Description and Reflection. Course paper, Art History 555: John Singer Sargent, Graduate Program in the History of Art, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 2011. Dupêcher, Natalie. The Push-Pull Effect in Sargent's Resting: Pictorial Influences and Questions of Chronology . Course paper, Art History 555: John Singer Sargent, Graduate Program in the History of Art, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 2011. Dupêcher, Natalie. Resting, Reflection. Course paper, Art History 555: John Singer Sargent, Graduate Program in the History of Art, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 2011. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Paintings on Exhibition, July 1968. Exhibition brochure. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1968.

Provenance

Miss Elizabeth E. Bourne, New York; to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); to Stephen C. Clark, 1919; to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, September 23, 1931); to Robert Sterling Clark, February 13, 1934.