The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (103 page)

377
Genie said, and recalled how:
Ibid.

377
“feeling sorry for things”:
Baker,
Stanny
, 63.

377
“If ever a man acted”:
Ibid.

378
“If you stick to eight feet”:
White,
Stanford White: Letters to His Family
, 90.

378
White thought Madison Square Park:
Ibid., 101.

378
“a quiet and distinguished place”:
Ibid.

378
“Go for Madison Square”: Tharp,
Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Era
, 136.

378
“to break away from the regular”:
Baker,
Stanny
, 55.

378
October 14, 1879:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her mother, October 14, 1879, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

379
“purely mechanical thing”:
Ibid., November 21, 1879.

379
Gus had acquired a flute:
Ibid., February 28, 1879, and March 6, 1879.

379
Rental for both:
Ibid., November 21, 1879.

379
In December came the coldest:
Ibid.

379
The Seine froze over: American Register
, December 20, 1879.

379
Two large coal stoves:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her mother, December 12, 1879, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

379
“Poor Aug is driven”:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her parents, December 12, 1879, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

379
“Louis sleeps there”:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her mother, December 19, 1879, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

379
“All my brain can conceive”:
Saint-Gaudens, ed.,
Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens
, Vol. I, 257–58.

380
“I haven’t the faintest”:
Wilkinson,
Uncommon Clay
, 102.

380
“One of Farragut’s legs”:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her mother, January 23, 1880, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

380
“There are nineteen”:
Ibid., February 6, 1880.

381
“I have seen nothing finer”: New York World
, February 24, 1880.

381
Only days later:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her mother, March 10, 1880, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

381
“It was immensely heavy”:
Ibid.

381
“Clear and cloudless”:
Ibid.

381
Aug was “very well”:
Ibid.

381
In April, Gussie discovered:
Ibid., May 12, 1880, and June 11, 1880; Wilkinson,
Uncommon Clay
, 165.

381
“He felt very much pleased”:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her mother, April 30, 1880, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

381
His entries were awarded:
Tharp,
Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Era
,142.

381
“that initiative and boldness”:
Wilkinson,
Uncommon Clay
, 102.

382
“the incarnation of the sailor”:
Gilder, “The Farragut Monument,”
Scribner’s
, Vol. XXII (June 1881), 166.

382
The cost was substantial:
Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her mother, May 7, 1880, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

382
“You know it is quite an exciting thing”:
Ibid., May 12, 1880.

382
The baby, a boy:
Saint-Gaudens, ed.,
Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens
, Vol. I, 271.

383
This entire composition:
Augustus Saint-Gaudens to Augusta Saint-Gaudens, n.d., but written from New York City, Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

383
“Yesterday I had a good long day’s work”:
Ibid.

383
“They have commenced cutting”:
Ibid.

383
“Did I ever tell you”:
Ibid.

383
How was the “Babby”:
Ibid.

384
a beautiful and remarkable work: New York Times
, May 26, 1881.

384
“The faces are naturally”:
Ibid.

384
The character of the indomitable: New York Evening Post
, undated review in the Saint-Gaudens Papers, Dartmouth College.

384
“In modeling severe”:
Gilder, “The Farragut Monument,”
Scribner’s
, Vol. XXII (June 1881), 164.

384
“The sight of such a thing”:
Saint-Gaudens, ed.,
Reminiscences of Augustus SaintGaudens
, Vol. I, 265.

385
“Haven’t I got a right”:
Ibid., 263.

All of Sargent’s masterworks from this period are in collections in the United States: The
Portrait of Carolus-Duran
is at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute at Williamstown, Massachusetts. His two paintings of evening in the Luxembourg Gardens are at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
El Jaleo
is at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston;
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and
Madame X
at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The works of Mary Cassatt, too, are to be seen in collections in museums throughout the United States, though her first portrait of her mother,
Reading Le Figaro
, is in a private collection. Two of sister Lydia,
The Cup of Tea
and
Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly
, are at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. One of her finest 1889 mother-and-child paintings, called
Mother and Child
, is at the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas.

Americans in Paris, 1860–1900
, the illustrated catalogue for a memorable 2006 exhibition with essays by Kathleen Adler, Erica E. Hirshler, and H. Barbara Weinberg, is a superb survey of the works of Cassatt, Sargent, and thirty-five other American artists who studied in Paris. Erica E. Hirshler’s
Sargent’s Daughters: The Biography of a Painting
is an engaging study of
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
.

Robert Henri, who was to become a leading American painter of the early twentieth century and one of the most inspiring of all American art teachers, also wrote a
delightful book called
The Art Spirit
, with reflections on his time in Paris and much else.

PAGE

387
Paris! We are here!: Robert Henri Diary, September 22, 1888, Archives of American Art.

387
in 1879:
Mathews,
Mary Cassatt: A Life
, 133–34.

387
“The
Woman Reading …
is a miracle”:
Ibid., 137.

388
“There was always a little crowd”:
FitzWilliam Sargent to Tom Sargent, August 15, 1879, Archives of American Art.

388
“No American had ever painted”:
Ormond and Kilmurray,
John Singer Sargent: The Early Portraits
, Vol. I, 44.

388
May Alcott of Boston:
Mathews,
Mary Cassatt: A Life
, 102–3.

388
If Mr. John Sargent be excepted:
Mathews,
Cassatt: A Retrospective
, 87.

389
Most of the summer of 1877:
Ormond and Kilmurray,
John Singer Sargent: The Early Portraits
, Vol. I, xiii.

390
It was seeing the portrait of Carolus-Duran:
Olson,
John Singer Sargent
, 75.

390
Sargent’s childhood playmates:
Ormond and Kilmurray,
John Singer Sargent: The Early Portraits
, Vol. I, 75.

390
“I enjoyed it very much”:
Ibid., 76.

390
“mere dabs and blurs”:
Ibid.

391
“application to art of psychological research”:
Charteris,
John Sargent
, 250.

391
“In his eyes”:
Ibid.

391
“very poor and bohemian”:
Ormond and Kilmurray,
John Singer Sargent: The Early Portraits
, Vol. I, 57.

391
He concentrated on each detail:
Ibid.

392
Fanny Watts, the subject of:
Ibid., 42.

392
Later came even more talk:
Ibid., 64–65.

393
“she has wonderful spirits”:
Mrs. Robert Simpson Cassatt to Robbie Cassatt, May 21, 1882, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

394
“Mame’s success is certainly more marked”:
Mathews, ed.,
Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters
, 160–61.

394
“very ill”:
Robert Simpson Cassatt to Alexander Cassatt, August 2, 1882, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

394
“Mary being the worst kind of alarmist”:
Ibid.

394
“Poor dear!”:
Mathews,
Mary Cassatt: A Life
, 162.

395
“left alone in the world”:
Ibid.

395
“the most striking picture”:
Charteris,
John Sargent
, 57.

396
Edward Darley Boit:
Hirshler,
Sargent’s Daughters
, 20.

396
“brilliantly friendly”:
Ibid., 21.

396
The two oldest Boit daughters:
Ibid., 4.