non-romance, romance, #10: Mr. and Mrs. I.N. Phelps Stokes, John Singer Sargent

seeking: great dane husband

A new non-romance, romance for paid subscribers! This is a monthly series where I write about something that is not a genre fiction romance novel through the lens of romance. This month is about one of my favorite paintings and the romantic and art historical context of its execution.

The wedding announcement of Miss Edith Minturn and Mr. I.N. Phelps Stokes in The New York Times, August 22, 1895

Let me know if you’ve heard this one before.

A pair of newlyweds, a beautiful heiress and an up-and-coming architect, have secured a boon. The painter of all painters, of Florence, then Paris, and now London, is going to paint the wife. The couple is wealthy, but a family friend has paid the fee for the portrait as a wedding gift, though the couple did fund their two-year honeymoon, mostly in Paris, from New York which has led to this mini (months-long) detour in London.

The painter is known for his paintings of women in dresses. Big, silk chiffon, House of Worth creations. The husband and wife and painter settle on a blue one, to match her eyes, and the work begins. And goes on and on for five weeks. The husband sits by, though he is not needed. He mostly just wants to be close to his new wife. The wife is posed with a fan, that she is instructed to tap repeatedly on a table so that that gesture might be captured. Suddenly during one of the sittings, the husband and wife watch the painter undo all his work, scraping the oil paint off the canvas, dissatisfied with this woman, in this dress, in that pose, on this canvas.

Other confection dresses are proffered as options by the wife at the next sitting, but after considering them, the painter says no, she will wear the outfit that she wore when she walked into the studio, a walking dress. She will appear just as she is at that moment, wind-swept and alive, coming inside after a walk.

Ever fond of referencing the compositions of portrait masters, the painter now intends to procure a Great Dane to stand beside the wife, referencing a Van Dyck (shown below) and emphasizing the monumental size of the canvas: seven feet tall. A great dog for a grand painting.

James Stewart Duke of Lennox and Richmond, 1637, by Sir Anthony van Dyck

But the intended dog never appears. The friend who had the required dog has left London. Nevertheless, another substitution is made. First, there was a day dress for a ball gown and now it’s the husband for the dog. The portrait is now a double. A wedding gift has become a marriage portrait.

my favorite sentence on Wikipedia

Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, 1897, by John Singer Sargent