The Sphinx

John Singer Sargent travelled to Egypt in early 1891 in order to research and gain inspiration to complete a mural cycle commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Though the artist lived a peripatetic life, he retained close ties to Boston throughout his career, and the scheme to decorate the staircase and rotunda of the museum's new building was one of the artists final, and most ambitious, projects. Specific details of his movements in the Near East are vague, however, Sargent is known to have taken a studio in Cairo, and he probably spent the majority of his stay at the Hotel de Nil. In Cairo Sargent met up with fellow artist, Joseph Farquharson, a painter known for his Egyptian scenes and in late January of 1891, the two artists took a steamer trip down the Nile.
There are surprisingly few extant paintings or drawings recording Sargent’s Egyptian voyage, although the trip was clearly of great import both personally and professionally, and proved a significant source of inspiration for his mural series. Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray note that ‘with his love of the mysterious and outlandish, it is unsurprising that Sargent was attracted to the Sphinx, emblem of knowledge and wisdom’ (R. Ormond and E. Kilmurry, John Singer Sargent, p. 220). The image of the Sphinx and Chimaera were both included in his final composition of the mural at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Sargent died in April 1925, and his estate sale was held in these Rooms, 24 and 27 July 1925. The present lot was sold at this time and acquired by Mrs William K. du Pont, a prominent horticulturalist who also owned another watercolour by the artist of The Villa Marlia, Lucca.