Existing comment:
Edward Augustus Silsbee 1826–1900
Following his retirement as an American merchant seaman, Captain Edward Silsbee developed a passion for the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. While living in Florence between 1872 and 1879, Silsbee ingratiated himself with Claire Clairmont, who had been an intimate companion of Shelley's. She possessed some of the poet's letters, which Silsbee reportedly hoped to acquire. He appears to have had a brief affair with Clairmont's niece but balked at her proposal of marriage, which may have been the price for the letters. The story would inspire The Aspern Papers (1888), a novella by Henry James, whose portrait by Sargent hangs in an adjacent gallery.
Silsbee and Sargent likely first met in the 1870s while the young artist was living with his parents in Florence. The latter reconnected on one of Sargent's visits to Boston, where Silsbee sat for this sensitive portrait near the end of his life.
Charcoal on paper, 1899
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; gift of the sitter
This is the National Portrait Gallery sign in the exhibit. |