The Patron Subjects

On a visit to Seattle early in 2001, I happened to see an exhibition of paintings by John Singer Sargent at the Seattle Art Museum. The artist had made brief appearances in two biographies I had written—one, of Alice James, the younger sister of William and Henry James; the other, of the financier and art collector J. Pierpont Morgan. My publisher had reproduced part of a Sargent painting, The Breakfast Table, on a paperback edition of Alice James. All these figures—Sargent, Morgan, the Jameses—were Americans who lived transatlantic lives between the 1850s and early 1900s, and their worlds occasionally intersected. Sargent and Henry James were neighbors in London and good friends; the artist’s painting of the writer is a masterpiece. Having published his novel The Portrait of a Lady in 1881, James wrote a few years later, “There is no greater work of art than a great portrait—a truth to be constantly taken to heart by a painter holding in his hand the weapon that Mr. Sargent wields.”

Finding the wielder of that weapon in Seattle was a welcome surprise. The exhibition was called “John Singer Sargent: Portraits of the Wertheimer Family.” Who were the Wertheimers? According to introductory text on the wall, the father of the family, Asher, was a London art dealer of German Jewish descent who had commissioned portraits of himself and his wife in 1897 to honor their 25th wedding anniversary. Artist and patron became friends, and over the following decade, Sargent—at the height of his career—painted the couple’s 10 children as well, individually and in groups. He portrayed several of the Wertheimer women twice.

All 12 portraits were on view in Seattle, along with photographs, a Wertheimer genealogy, and other Sargent paintings and drawings. One photograph showed Sargent and two of the Wertheimers paused on a lawn during a game of croquet. Apparently, the artist had open invitations to Asher’s London townhouse and his country retreat in Berkshire.

Within a few minutes, I was entirely captivated—by the paintings, a sense of the stories they might tell, and a great many questions.

What had drawn Sargent to this family? How had they met? I associated him with portraits of British aristocrats and Boston Brahmins, not with Jews. Did he have other Jewish patrons and friends?

Why was the painting of the eldest Wertheimer son, Edward, unfinished?

What became of the elegantly dressed second son, Alfred, looking like an Edwardian aesthete with one hand on a stack of books? Why were there glass flasks on a wall beside him?

A lovely pencil sketch of the eldest daughter, Ena (Helena), was inscribed, “Jan. 25, ’10, to Ena, philoprocree, John S. Sargent.” Philoprocree? The caption on a nearby photograph identified her as Ena Wertheimer Mathias. Many of the exhibition items were credited to the collection of a Mrs. David Mathias. Which meant there were living descendants. Where?