John Singer Sargent

Helen Sears was one of two portraits Sargent completed in 1895 when he traveled to Boston to install his first murals at the Boston Public Library. Six-year-old Helen was the daughter of Sargent’s friend Sarah Choate Sears, an accomplished photographer, painter, and art patron. Sargent’s high viewpoint and tilted perspective serve to silhouette Helen against the dark red carpet, and the creamy tones of her dress and bright illumination of her face lend her an air of childhood innocence, belied in part by her wistful mood as she stares solemnly into the distance. Helen had posed for another portrait by Abbott H. Thayer three years earlier (1891–92, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio) and was a frequent subject of her mother’s photographs. Sears sent Sargent her photograph of Helen wearing the same dress and shoes in which Sargent had painted her, prompting him to respond that it “makes me feel like returning to Boston and putting my umbrella through my portrait. But how can an unfortunate painter hope to rival a photograph by a mother? Absolute truth combined with absolute feeling.”