Brooklyn Museum: Collections: American Art

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Gourds, circa 1905. Watercolor on paper, 13 13/16 x 19 11/16 in. (35.1 x 50 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by Special Subscription, 09.822

In 1909, the Brooklyn Museum made a prescient purchase of a cache of Sargent watercolors on exhibition at the prestigious New York gallery M. Knoedler & Company. Prior to this exhibition, Sargent was known primarily for his oil portraits, but as Americans gained familiarity with his watercolors the public quickly developed an appreciation for this work. Today, the artist is considered one of America's greatest masters of the medium, along with Winslow Homer. Sargent used watercolor throughout his career to explore subjects and techniques that were not a part of his formal portrait commissions. Gourds, one of over forty Sargent watercolors in the Museum's collection, demonstrates his virtuosity. In this image of the lush vegetation he encountered on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, Sargent combined vivid colors, bravura brushwork, and a range of watercolor techniques (including transparent and opaque washes, impasto touches, and leaving areas of the paper blank) to create a composition of stunning immediacy and visual richness.

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