In this lively portrait, Sargent explores the material culture of the Victorian elite. The ostensible subject is his younger sister, Violet, who peels an orange in the midst of her morning reading. But Sargent is
as interested in conveying his sister’s character as he is in portraying her surroundings. Laden with ceramics, crystal, crisp white linens, and shimmering silver, The Breakfast Table captures the look and feel
of the well-appointed French apartment that the Sargent family rented in the south of France in the summer of 1883.
Painted in Paris, the work exemplifies Sargent’s regard for the formal innovations of the French impressionists. With its cropped and compressed foreground, loose brushwork, and muted palette punctuated by daubs
of bright white, it evokes the paintings of Degas and Manet. An inscription at lower right dedicates the work to Albert Besnard, a French artist and friend who also explored the effects of light and shadow.
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