Sargent’s “An Interior in Venice” 1899

John Singer Sargent’s “An Interior in Venice” (1899) was rejected by the Curtis family it depicts for its unbecoming portrayal of the redoubtable matron, Ariana Curtis.  It was intended as a gift for Mrs Curtis in appreciation for the times Sargent stayed & worked in the house as his ‘Venetian base’.

This group portrait shows the grand saloon of the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal in Venice during the heyday of its ownership by the expatriate Americans Daniel Sargent Curtis (1825–1908), who was the artists first cousin once removed, & his wife Ariana Wormeley (1833–1922), who are seen on the right. Their son Ralph (1854–1922) & his wife Lisa De Wolfe Colt are at the tea table on the left.

Sargent presented it to the Royal Academy in London as his diploma work in December 1899, withdrawing his painting Professor Johannes Wolff which he submitted the previous year.

Henry James, who, on one of his extended visits to the Palazzo, wrote The Great Condition, commented in a letter to Mrs. Curtis: “The Barbaro Saloon … I absolutely & unreservedly adored…. I’ve seen few things of S’s that I’ve ever craved more to possess!”  James included a description of the room in his novel The Wings of the Dove.

Palazzo Barbaro became the hub of American life in Venice with visits not only from Sargent & James, but Whistler, along with Robert Browning & Claude Monet. Other members of the “Barbaro Circle” included Bernard Berenson, William Merritt Chase, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Charles Eliot Norton & Edith Wharton.  The Palazzi Barbaro are a pair of adjoining palaces. The first of the two palaces, the one owned by the Curtises, is in the Venetian Gothic style built in 1425. The second structure was executed in the Baroque style at the turn of the 18^th century.