John Singer Sargent Church of San Stae

19. John Singer Sargent
The Church of San Stae, Venice, c. 1907
Oil on canvas
22 x 28 inches

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
The Church of San Stae, Venice, c. 1907
Oil on canvas
22 x 28 inches

Ex-collections:

Christie's, Manson, & Woods, London, July 24 and 27, 1925, Pictures and Water Colour Drawings by J.S. Sargent, R.A., lot 128, illustrated (as The Church of the Gesuiti, Venice)
Sir Joseph Duveen
Private collection, London, c. 1925
By family descent, until the present

Exhibition:

London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Works by the Late John Singer Sargent, R.A., 1926, no. 30 (as The Church of the Gesuiti, Venice)

Literature:

Downes, William Howe. John S. Sargent, His Life and Work. London: Butterworth, 1926, p. 326.

Venice was nearly a second home to Sargent who had known the city from his early youth. In the 1880s, his somber-toned Venetian paintings focused on local life seen through doorways and along the narrow streets far removed from the activity along the canals. After the turn of the century, he began to look closely at the architecture of the city and the effects of light on its spectacular facades and stone surfaces. He visited Venice nearly every year through 1913 and often stayed with his cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Curtis and their son Ralph, who lived at the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal. Although Sargent painted over 125 works in Venice between 1900 and 1913, fewer than a dozen were oils. These exceptional works include The Rialto, Venice (Philadelphia Museum of Art), Santa Maria della Salute (Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa), and The Entrance to the Santa Maria della Salute (The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England). The subject of this oil is the Venetian church of San Stae, not the Gesuiti as it had first been identified in the artist's studio sale. The facade, cut off just above the pediment of the main door, is characteristic of Sargent's Venetian architectural paintings.

One window of the red Scuola dei Battiloro e Tiraoro is seen to the left. Sargent painted only one other oil of the Church of San Stae (private collection) in which he omitted the elaborate architectural detail of the entrance and facade.

This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on John Singer Sargent by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray in collaboration with Warren Adelson and Elizabeth Oustinoff.