Lot Essay
The present work is a replica of an earlier painting of the same title from 1901, which is in the collection of the Hugh Lane Municipal Art Gallery, Dublin. The sitter is identified as the Austrian baronness, Marguerite von Hollrigl, but nothing is known about the circumstances in which she sat for the artist. As Kenneth McConkey (Sir John Lavery, Edinburgh, 1993, p.107) comments on the earlier version 'In a dazzling virtuoso display of pearl greys and pinks, this picture bore direct comparison with Lady Agnew, yet it avoided Sargent's synthetic colour... Here more than any previous portraits, the artist caught a sense of negligent alertness that Sargent often conveyed in his sitters. Although the model was 'in respose' she is 'like an actress who listens with patience and yet prepares for instant movement'. This sense of latent energy is partly conveyed in the modulation of the silver dress and the painting of the hands which fall lanquidly over the sides of the wicker chair. For all her impassivity, La Dame aux Perles transmits considerable charisma'.