The expatriate artist John Singer Sargent was the most popular portraitist of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Born in Florence to American expatriates who moved often, he did not receive a formal education. His mother was a competent amateur artist and his father was an eye surgeon and medical illustrator. He began formal art study in Paris with Carolus-Duran, and was accepted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1874.

Though Sargent preferred landscape painting, he regularly exhibited full-length portraits at the Salon during the 1880s. One particular work--Portrait of Madame X (Metropolitan Museum of Art)--was meant to solidify his reputation but was considered scandalous by critics and the public and became a temporary setback in his career.

After exhibiting several works at the Royal Academy in England, he began receiving enough commissions there that he moved his studio to London in 1886. He traveled to New York and Boston in 1887 and 1888 and produced a number of commissioned works including a portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Sargent has been the subject of large-scale exhibitions in most of the major museums in both the US and the UK.