Peter A. B. Widener

John Singer Sargent

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the knees up, an older, pale-skinned man stands with his body angled to our right as he looks at us from the corners of his eyes in this vertical portrait painting. His short fringe of hair around a balding head and his bushy moustache are steel gray, and he gazes at us with brown eyes under thick brows. A long, hooked nose and small red mouth are set in his jowl-lined face. He wears a long, fern-green coat with a matching vest trimmed in gold over a white shirt. A polka-dotted, pine-green cravat is tied around the standing collar and held in place with a gold pin. Two copper-colored brushstrokes near his waist suggest a pocket watch chain. The hand closer to us hangs by his hip with the thumb hooked into the pocket of his trousers, which are loosely painted with long strokes of olive and sage green. His other hand rests on the mahogany-brown wooden door that fills the space beyond him. Inset panels on the door are outlined in darker brown to create stepped, geometric shapes. The man is warmly lit from the upper left and the background is in shadow. The artist signed and dated the painting in the upper right, “John S. Sargent 1902.”