John Singer Sargent, collector of modern art: works by Antonio Mancini and other Italian painters

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this essay is to shed light on John Singer Sargent, the greatest American Impressionist in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, as a collector of modern art. With the exception of a group of works by Old Masters such as Tintoretto and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, the American artist’s collection was, in fact, principally composed of contemporary works of art, most of which were by Italian painters, with several of whom Sargent enjoyed more or less close relationships. Sargent’s collection, sold at Christie’s on 24–7 July 1925, contained works by artists such as Giovanni Boldini, Alberto Falchetti, Ambrogio Raffele, Domenico Morelli and, in particular, Antonio Mancini – the last said to have been called by Sargent ‘the greatest living painter’, so overwhelmed was he by his friend’s virtuosity with the paintbrush.