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While I had planned to write more this month about value situations to watch out for, I've decided to circle back to that topic later and instead let you know about this article recently posted on the Metropolitan Museum website. How Madame X came to the Met tells the story of how, after creating a huge scandal at the 1884 Paris Salon, John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of Madame Gautreau ended up in a museum here in America. The story itself is fascinating enough but at the bottom of the page you will find a link to a terrific video of the Sargent in Paris exhibit I was able to see this past June. Thanks to the internet you can visit the same show minus the crowds, exhaustion and considerable expense of getting there yourself. Not that I would pass on experiencing the exhibit in person but this virtual tour is really well done and the camera zooms in on areas of the paintings that would be impossible to get close to without a stepladder. Enjoy!

                                                                                             John Singer Sargent in atelier  

                                                                  (Adolphe Giraudon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

From the archives: How Madame X came to the Met

Direct link to exhibition tour of Sargent in Paris --

https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/exhibition-tour-sargent-and-paris

" You must draw with your brush as readily, as unconsciously almost as you draw with your pencil." --- John Singer Sargent