Fountain

John Singer Sargent "The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy"  1907
The Art Institute of Chicago

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) painted this while on vacation in Italy with his friends, artists Jane Emmet and Wilfrid de Glehn. Sargent was an absolute master at making difficult things look easy. This piece appears to be a spontaneous plein air sketch and the bravura (loose, confident) brushwork makes it look like it was done quickly and alla prima (finished in just one session of painting.) However, in reality the painting took several days to complete.

Jane Emmet de Glehn (1873-1961) studied at the Art Student's League in New York City, and also studied for a time in Europe. After returning to America from her Grand Tour, she met and married the British impressionist painter Wilfrid de Glehn (1870–1951) in 1904. She and her husband were close friends with Sargent and they frequently traveled and painted together. Jane Emmet de Glehn was reputedly an accomplished artist but not a very prolific or ambitious one. Her older sisters Rosina Emmet Sherwood and Lydia Field Emmet both become successful (and more well-known) artists, as well as their first cousin, Ellen Emmet Rand.

Lydia Field Emmet "Self Portrait"  1912  National Academy of Design (USA)

Lydia Field Emmet (January 23, 1866 - August 16, 1952) was first taught to paint by her older sister Rosina. These two girls traveled to Paris to attend the Académie Julian together. After returning to New York, in the late 1880s, the two older Emmet sisters, and their cousin Ellen, became students of the American painter and instructor William Merritt Chase. Lydia Emmet later supplemented her income by assisting Chase at his famous summer school in Shinnecock Hills, NY in the early 1890s. Emmet went on to receive numerous honors and prizes and important commissions during her career, and her work can be found in major museum collections throughout the United States.