John Singer Sargent

(1856-1925)

Sketch of a Graveyard, Constantinople 19 3/4 x 24 in. (50.2 x 61 cm.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Francis Guillaume Ormond (1896-1971), Cornwall, England, nephew of the artist, by descent from the artist, 1925.
By descent within the family of the above.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Exhibited
(possibly) Boston, Copley Hall, The Boston Art Student's Association, Paintings and Sketches by John S. Sargent, February 20-March 13, 1899, p. 14 or 15, no. 65, 66, 70, or 77. (as Sketch)
Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Private World of John Singer Sargent, April 18-June 14, 1964, no. 56, and elsewhere.

Literature
C.M. Mount, John Singer Sargent: A Biography, New York, 1955, p. 447, K9116. (as Cemetery, Constantinople)
C.M. Mount, John Singer Sargent: A Biography, New York, 1969, p. 468, K9116. (as Cemetery, Constantinople)
R. Ormond, E. Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent, The Complete Paintings, Volume V: Figures and Landscapes, 1883-1899, London, 2010, p. 249, no. 950, illustrated.

Sketch of a Graveyard, Constantinople belongs to the select number of works that serve as a visual record of John Singer Sargent's lifelong sense of wanderlust. Born in Florence to American parents, Sargent had a nomadic upbringing that carried over well into adulthood with travels around the Mediterranean to Capri, Spain and Egypt (see Egyptian Woman sold at Bonhams in November 2023). As a result, his approach to tourism was not singular; he took a keen interest in exploring beyond architectural highlights to fully engage with the surrounding landscape, culture, and people. While Sargent found professional success in his fin de siècle society portraits, these works he completed outside the studio not only serve as mementos from his travels but reveal an intimate perspective on the beauty he observed in the natural world.

Early in Sargent's career, travel functioned as a means of education, with an 1879 trip to Spain serving as a pseudo–Grand Tour. Here he copied works in the Museo del Prado by Old Masters like Velazquez (1599-1660), Goya (1746-1828) and El Greco (1541-1614). His itinerary continued to the ruins of the Palace of Alhambra where he practiced rendering the effects of bright Mediterranean light on stone – an exercise that later proved fruitful in his handling of the gravestones in the present work. In the cantinas of Seville, he studied the movement of flamenco dancers. Subsequent visits took him further out of city centers and into lush gardens and wild pomegranate groves. This well-rounded itinerary of education and immersion suited Sargent on future expeditions as he sought to venture further east.

In 1890 Sargent accepted a prestigious commission to decorate the Special Collections Hall at the Boston Public Library with a mural cycle depicting the Triumph of Religion. To prepare for the monumental project, Sargent set out on a three-month trip to familiarize himself with 'the legend, and myth, the history and archaeology, the symbols and religion' of the Near and Middle East.¹ The present lot was painted during this research excursion in the outskirts of present-day Istanbul likely around Eyub Cami on the Golden Horn.² Together with stops in Egypt and Greece and accompanied by his sketchbook, this trip followed a similar outline of both studying and sightseeing that Sargent first established on his Grand Tour.

The ancient city of Constantinople was a logical choice for Sargent's research since the Bosphorus River connected Europe and Asia geographically, culturally and commercially. Central to its skyline stands the Hagia Sophia, a historical site that has operated as both a church under the Byzantine Empire and a mosque under the Ottoman. Sargent painted the interior on two occasions with Sketch of Santa Sophia (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, object no. 50.130.18) in particular placing emphasis on the immense volume of the grand structure. Tourists and worshippers are indistinguishable from one another as Sargent paints them from high above, rendering each with quick dabs of black paint. Here the focus becomes the building itself rather than the people in it. Sketch of a Graveyard, Constantinople however offers a different perspective, placing viewers at ground level protected under the shade of cypress trees that grow infinitely out of the composition. Sargent has created a peaceful view of an otherwise solemn subject. Wildflowers bloom on the hillside behind a stone wall while the late afternoon sun casts long shadows on the curving pathway. It is an intimate scene that distinguishes the works Sargent painted as direct studies for his murals from those he painted as souvenirs.

The final panels of Sargent's mural series were not installed until 1919, nearly thirty years after he first accepted the commission. During that period, he would go on to visit Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Italy all under the guise of research but never missing an opportunity to document the world around him.

¹Hon. E. Charteris, K.C., John Sargent, New York, 1927, p. 114.
²R. Ormond, E. Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent, The Complete Paintings, Volume V: Figures and Landscapes, 1883-1899, London, 2010, p. 249.