The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

Among John Singer Sargent's renowned portraits, "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" stands alongside "Madame X" and "Lady Agnew of Lochnaw" as one of Sargent's immortal images. This painting depicts four young sisters in the spacious foyer of the family's Paris apartment, strangely dispersed across the murky tones and depths of the square canvas, as though unrelated to one another, unsettled and unsettling to the eye. The exact circumstances surrounding Sargent's commission to paint this portrait remain unknown. Edward Boit was a well-to-do Bostonian who had studied law before deciding to pursue a career as a painter. He and his wife Mary Louisa Cushing Boit lived in Boston and Paris with their four daughters-Mary Louisa, who was eight years old when Sargent painted her, Florence (age fourteen), Jane (twelve), and Julia (four). The Boits met Sargent in Paris, and while they may have first approached him to create a traditional portrait, they supported his ambition to paint a bold masterpiece, even allowing him to obscure Florence's features.