A woman in plain black standing before a gold brocade of pomegranates

A woman stands square to the viewer in a plain black dress cut low and round at the neck, with short sleeves and a long skirt to the floor. Two ropes of pearls are looped round her waist, a ruby hangs at her throat and another at the pearls. Her hands are clasped low in front of her. Behind her a Venetian brocade of pomegranates and scrolling leaves fills the whole panel in dull gold and crimson, its rosettes rising round her head like a halo. Her slippers show below the hem.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was the leading portrait painter of his generation, born in Florence to American parents and trained in Paris under Carolus-Duran. The scandal of Madame X drove him to London in 1884, where he painted the aristocracy and the great merchant families for two decades before abandoning commissioned portraiture in 1907 for watercolour, landscape and mural work. He travelled constantly — Venice, the Alps, Spain, the Middle East, Florida — painting in oil and watercolour with a bravura touch that was widely imitated and never matched. His work is held by the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Tate and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.