NEW YORK, NY.- Through August 3, Sargent and Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art explores the early career of John Singer Sargent (born 1856, Florence; died 1925, London), from his arrival in Paris in 1874 as a talented 18-year-old art student through the mid-1880s, when his infamous portrait Madame X was a scandalous success at the Paris Salon. Featuring a substantial collection of paintings, watercolors, and drawings, the exhibition also includes a select group of portraits by Sargent’s contemporaries. The exhibition is the largest international exhibition of Sargent’s work since 1998 and the first ever monographic exhibition of Sargent’s art in France. Following the exhibition’s debut at The Met, it will travel to the Musée d'Orsay, Paris from September 23, 2025 to January 11, 2026.
Through March 8, 2026, the complementary installation, Emily Sargent: Portrait of a Family, will be on view in gallery 773 of the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art in the American Wing. This in-house exhibition features works by Emily Sargent (1857-1936), a talented amateur watercolorist, and members of her artistic family, including her older brother, John Singer Sargent, and their mother, Mary Newbold Sargent, who encouraged her children’s artmaking. Emily Sargent: Portrait of a Family takes a closer look at their creative aspirations and explores how paths diverged for daughter and son, revealing the challenges women artists faced in the late 19th century. The exhibition celebrates the recent gift—from the artists’ heirs—of 26 Emily Sargent watercolors, continuing a long legacy of family giving at the foundation of the Museum’s extensive Sargent holdings.
“This magnificent exhibition sheds new light on a transformative period in the life and career of one of America’s most important painters,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “By situating Sargent’s work within the context of the city that formed and inspired him, Sargent and Paris illuminates this influential artist’s meteoric rise, providing new insights into his unique talent and skill in capturing the vibrant society he inhabited.”
Stephanie L. Herdrich, Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Painting and Drawings at The Met, said: “Sargent’s career was indelibly shaped by the time he spent in Paris. Over the course of one remarkable decade, he created the boldest and most daring paintings of his oeuvre. Sargent and Paris showcases these visually stunning and ambitious works, shedding new light on his distinctive artistic vision. We are thrilled to partner with the Musée d’Orsay to reunite this collection of great works in New York and Paris.”
Exhibition Overview
Sargent and Paris opens with the 18-year-old Sargent’s arrival in Paris in 1874 to pursue his ambition to become an artist. The exhibition’s first section, “In the Studio,” features the precocious drawings and sketches that impressed his fellow students at the prestigious French government school, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied with leading French portraitist Carolus-Duran (1837–1917). His relationships with members of the international community—students, artists, and patrons—were critical to his development.
During his student years in Paris, Sargent spent his summers traveling. The next section, “Beyond the Studio,” presents works that show how Sargent found inspiration from his travels. His interest in painting outdoors was stimulated by contemporary artists, particularly the Impressionists. He often chose subjects popular at the time: local people, architecture, and seascapes. Above all, Sargent sought attention at the Paris Salon, the annual state-sponsored exhibition that offered unparalleled public exposure.
Upon completion of his training, Sargent was determined to continue his study of historical art. Having spent a significant part of his youth living in Italy as well as time in Spain, he was enchanted by the art and culture of both countries. “Painting Abroad” captures his fascination with the unique characteristics of the places he traveled, with a focus on Sargent’s extended trip through Spain and Morocco in 1879–80. The works demonstrate his quest for subjects that Western audiences considered “exotic”: picturesque sites, vernacular architecture, and local people.
In the early 1880s, Sargent balanced his wanderlust with studio work in Paris. Determined to build his public career, he contrived increasingly ambitious paintings for exhibitions in Paris and abroad. As Sargent pushed boundaries, his bold works attracted notice from members of the international community, and he began receiving more commissions. The striking portraits in “Fascinating Portraits” were created during a highly productive three-year period, from 1879 to 1882. Sargent’s earliest patrons were friends and acquaintances or members of artistic society. During an era of increasing wealth and social mobility, his sitters embraced self-presentation through portraiture—often to validate their standing.
Sargent had tremendous success at the Paris Salon in 1882 with a portrait of Charlotte Burckhardt and the monumental El Jaleo, which made him “The Most Talked About Painter in Paris,” the title of this section. This gallery highlights works created under intense pressure to deliver another extraordinary submission for 1883. When he couldn’t complete portraits of notable society women in a timely manner, Sargent instead sent The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, a portrait of the children of his friends and an emotionally probing rendering of childhood. The section also displays Las Meninas, After Velásquez, revealing his debt to Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), whose paintings Sargent copied while at the Prado Museum during an artistic pilgrimage to Madrid .
Sargent built a significant network in Paris through talent, intellectual curiosity, and social acumen. He moved fluidly among sophisticated circles of artists, writers, and patrons. Many of the portraits in “Friendship and Patronage” bear witness to Sargent’s close relationships with influential figures, including Louis de Fourcaud and Emma Allouard-Jouan, both writers who helped bolster Sargent’s reputation through astute critiques of his art for prestigious journals. During these years, Sargent’s career as a portraitist flourished. He shrewdly catered to an upwardly mobile international clientele, becoming known as a flattering painter of women. The close friendships he formed with the dynamic women of Paris from artistic, literary, or high society were essential to his success and reveal his proximity to the city’s social and cultural epicenter.
In the second half of the 19th century, the fashionable, modern woman of Paris, the so-called Parisienne, became a fascination to French society that quickly spread abroad. The figure encapsulated a particular worldly elegance, unique to denizens of the capital. This mythic ideal, purportedly having “arisen like Venus from the waters of the Seine,” was a source of national pride. The six portraits of Parisiennes in “La Parisienne” are by artists who inspired Sargent and with whom he competed for commissions and recognition, including his teachers Carolus-Duran and Léon Bonnat and artistic role models such as Édouard Manet. Traversing the spectrum of contemporary artistic tradition from conservative to progressive, these artists each offer their own interpretation of modern beauty.
The next gallery, “Madame X,” focuses on the iconic portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau (1859–1915), a glamorous figure in Paris in the early 1880s. Born in New Orleans to parents of French descent, Gautreau emigrated to Paris as a child and married a French banker in 1879, rising quickly in society. Fascinated by her arresting appearance and intending to create a magnum opus for the Paris Salon, Sargent convinced her to pose for him without a commission. Madame X was one of 2,488 paintings shown at the Paris Salon in 1884. Sargent’s art already had a reputation for capturing attention, but the portrait of Gautreau, displayed as Madame ***, brought intense scrutiny. Many critics used Gautreau’s appearance to question her morals: her “excessive” use of cosmetics, a symbol of vanity, and her “undress” (Sargent originally painted her dress strap sliding off her right shoulder). Despite the uproar, within days Gautreau was seen in Paris wearing a low-cut dress with a sparkling shoulder strap. When he sold the work to The Met in 1916, Sargent wrote that the portrait was “the best thing I’ve done,” and asked that it be titled Madame X. The exhibition presents a nuanced understanding of the painting at the heart of a scandal that is as infamous now as it was in 1884 along with an appreciation for the originality and brilliance of Sargent’s art, underpinning the more sensational aspects of artistic society in 1880s Paris. For the first time ever, Sargent and Paris reunites Madame X with its numerous preparatory drawings and paintings.
“Uncanny Spectacle” follows Sargent’s move to London following the debacle of Madame X. In June 1884, Sargent traveled to England for five months to fulfill several commissions; these British portraits helped redeem his reputation at the Paris Salon in 1885. Encouraged by the public response and by the writer Henry James, 29-year-old Sargent moved to London, where he resided until his death in 1925. Still, Sargent never fully left Paris behind. He continued to exhibit in the French capital and returned often. The young artist soon became one of the most sought-after portraitists on both sides of the Atlantic. As Sargent accumulated honors and awards, one of the most meaningful may have been the purchase of his portrait, La Carmencita, by the French state in 1892—securing his reputation in the city that formed him.
When Madame X was shown at the Paris Salon in 1884, many eagerly shared their impressions in letters or diaries. The last section, “Ephemera,” displays some of the reactions to the painting, including newspaper reviews, poems, cartoons, and reproductions of the work that reached audiences across the globe and conveyed powerful ideas about contemporary values. The gallery also invites visitors to be part of a conversation about Sargent’s art by leaving their own writing or drawing in response to the exhibition.
Visitors are encouraged to visit galleries 768, 770, and 771 in the American Wing to view later works by Sargent in The Met collection.
Through March 8, 2026, the complementary installation, Emily Sargent: Portrait of a Family, will be on view in gallery 773 of the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art in the American Wing. This in-house exhibition features works by Emily Sargent (1857-1936), a talented amateur watercolorist, and members of her artistic family, including her older brother, John Singer Sargent, and their mother, Mary Newbold Sargent, who encouraged her children’s artmaking. Emily Sargent: Portrait of a Family takes a closer look at their creative aspirations and explores how paths diverged for daughter and son, revealing the challenges women artists faced in the late 19th century. The exhibition celebrates the recent gift—from the artists’ heirs—of 26 Emily Sargent watercolors, continuing a long legacy of family giving at the foundation of the Museum’s extensive Sargent holdings.
