Rosina Ferrara, Head of a Capri Girl
- John Singer Sargent, American, 1856-1925
- Born: Florence
John Singer Sargent, Rosina Ferrara, Head of a Capri Girl, 1878. Oil paint on cardboard; 12 7/8 × 9 7/8 in. (32.7 × 25.1 cm). Denver Art Museum: Gift of the Berger Collection Educational Trust, 2018.21
John Singer Sargent
American, 1856–1925
Rosina Ferrara, Head of a Capri Girl, 1878
Oil on cardboard
Signed, inscribed, and dated by the artist at lower right, To my friend Hyde / souvenir of / John S. Sargent / Capri 1878.
Gift of the Berger Collection Educational Trust, 2018.21
John Singer Sargent painted this intimate study of Rosina Ferrara, whom he met on the island of Capri, off the coast of Naples, Italy, when he was just twenty-two. She briefly became his most frequent model, the subject of numerous sketches and finished paintings. Rosina’s southern European looks appealed to Sargent – his biographer Evan Charteris described her as “a magnificent type, about seventeen years of age, her complexion a rich nut-brown, with a mass of blue-black hair, very beautiful” – but here she emerges not as an object but as a fully human person.
- “Treasures from the Berger Collection: British Paintings 1400-2000” — Denver Art Museum, 10/2/2014 – 9/9/2018
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