Ena and Betty, Daughters of Asher and Mrs Wertheimer
John Singer Sargent, 1901
For now, just to look at
The photograph we have of this work is not sharp enough to print at the quality we want, so we are not selling it for now. We are looking for a better one.
About the work
- Artist
- John Singer Sargent
- Date
- 1901
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 185.4 × 130.8 cm
- Collection
- Tate (Tate Britain, London)
- Reference
- XDV-2842
What the museum label doesn't tell you
Look at the hands: Ena's, in red velvet, rests right on her sister's waist - not a decorative flourish but an embrace disguised as formal pose. Sargent painted the daughters of Asher Wertheimer, a Jewish art dealer who commissioned an entire family cycle of portraits on a scale usually reserved for British aristocracy. The generous 1922 gift to the Tate didn't spare the family from prejudiced remarks, some debated in Parliament itself. Against that backdrop, the sisters' closeness - velvet against silk, skin against skin - reads almost like an answer: we stand together, and we are not moving.
