
JAMES (HENRY) Photograph of the oil portrait of Henry James by John Singer Sargent, signed on the mount by both sitter ("Henry James") and artist ("John S Sargent"), [1913]
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JAMES (HENRY)
Footnotes
HENRY JAMES BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT – 'This portrait was commissioned to celebrate James's seventieth birthday by a group of 269 subscribers. Ultimately the artist John Singer Sargent, a fellow American and friend, waived his fee. When it was completed James pronounced the portrait to be "a living breathing likeness and a masterpiece of painting". It almost breathed its last before most people had a chance to see it for themselves. When the portrait went on show at the Royal Academy exhibition in May 1914, a suffragette named Mary Wood slashed the canvas three times with a meat cleaver, striking the area around James's right eye three times before she was apprehended' (National Portrait Gallery website).