Existing comment:
Eugenia Huici Errázuriz 1860–1952
The daughter of a Bolivian silver magnate, Eugenia Huici Errázuriz inherited a large fortune that helped fund her patronage of modern art. She bought and commissioned works by avant-garde artists, including Pablo Picasso, who painted murals at her villa in southern France. There, she developed a minimalist décor that was on the cutting-edge of twentieth-century style.
Errázuriz became a close friend and important collector of Sargent's work in the 1880s while she was living in Paris with her husband, a Chilean artist and diplomat. Sargent adored her, telling the pianist Arthur Rubenstein, "I have never known anyone with the unfailing, uncanny taste of this woman. Whether in art, music, literature, or interior decoration, she sees, feels, smells, the real value, the real beauty." The elaborately ornamented dress and bouffant hairstyle he represents in this portrait are in marked contrast to his subject's later taste for radical simplicity.
Charcoal on board, c. 1905
Private collection, Columbus, Georgia
This is the National Portrait Gallery sign in the exhibit. |