Home Fields

John Singer Sargent American, 1856-1925
On View

in

American, Level 2, West Wing

  • About the Artwork

    Please note: This section is empty

  • Markings

    Please note: This section is empty

    This section contains information about signatures, inscriptions and/or markings an object may have.

  • Provenance

    Please note: This section is empty

    Provenance is a record of an object's ownership. We are continually researching and updating this information to show a more accurate record and to ensure that this object was ethically and legally obtained.

    For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:

    Provenance page
  • Exhibition History

    Please note: This section is empty

    The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

    We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.

    Suggest Feedback
  • Published References

    Please note: This section is empty

    We regularly update our object record as new research and findings emerge, and we welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.

    Suggest Feedback
  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Please note: This section is empty

    A catalogue raisonné is an annotated listing of artworks created by an artist across different media.

  • Credit Line for Reproduction

    Please note: This section is empty

    The credit line includes information about the object, such as the artist, title, date, and medium. Also listed is its ownership, the manner in which it was acquired, and its accession number. This information must be cited alongside the object whenever it is shown or reproduced.

About the Artwork

The warm orange glow of the afternoon sun illuminates this scene, casting the long shadows of slender trees and a crumbling fence across the foreground. The American artist John Singer Sargent probably painted this in late autumn 1885 after he joined a lively group of artists in Broadway in the Cotswolds district of England. Sargent’s informal working habits, which produced strikingly immediate compositions like this, surprised his friends in that rural English village. The poet Edmund Gosse recorded that the painter wandered the fields, seemingly at random before stopping “nowhere in particular [. . .] the process was like that in the game of musical chairs.” Gosse explained that Sargent aimed “not to pick and choose” the most picturesque subject “but to render the effect before him, whatever it may be.”

Sargent inscribed the painting in red along the lower edge “to my friend Bramley,” the English painter Frank Bramley (1857 – 1915).

Home Fields

ca. 1885

John Singer Sargent

1856-1925

American

----------

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 28 3/4 × 38 inches (73 × 96.5 cm) Framed: 37 1/4 × 46 5/8 × 3 1/4 inches (94.6 × 118.4 × 8.3 cm)

Paintings

American Art before 1950

City of Detroit Purchase

21.72

Public Domain

Markings

Signed, lower left: To my friend Bramley | John S. Sargent

Inscribed, lower left: To my friend Bramley | John S. Sargent

Provenance

John Singer Sargent;
until 1920, Frank Bramley (Worcestershire, England);
May 28, 1920, sale (Christie's, lot 131, London, England);
1920, lot 15064, M. Knoedler & Co. (New York, New York, USA).
May 1921, John Levy Galleries (New York, New York, USA);
1921-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

For more information on provenance, please visit:

Provenance page

Exhibition History

Please note: This section is empty

The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.

Suggest Feedback

Published References

Burroughs, Clyde H. “Painting by Sargent Acquired.” Bulletin of the DIA 3, 1 (October 1921): pp. 4-6 (ill.).

Downes, William Howe. John S. Sargent: His Life and His Work. Boston, 1925, p. 138.

Charteris, Evan. John Sargent. London, 1927, pp. 84, 283.

Mount, Charles Merrill. John Singer Sargent: A Biography. New York, 1955, p. 445.

Mount, Charles Merrill. John Singer Sargent: A Biography. London, 1957, p. 355.

The Private World of John Singer Sargent. Exh. cat., Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1964, no. 35 (ill.).

Mount, Charles Merrill. “The English Sketches of John S. Sargent.” Country Life Magazine CXXXV (April 16, 1964): pp. 931-934 (fig. 1).

Mount, Charles Merrill. John Singer Sargent: A Biography. New York, 1969, p. 465.

Ormond, Richard. John Singer Sargent: Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors. London, 1970, pp. 34, 243 (pl. 48).

Hoopes, Donelson F. The American Impressionists. New York, 1972, pp. 58-59 (pl. 20).

Lomax, James and Richard Ormond. John Singer Sargent and the Edwardian Age. Leeds, 1979, p. 38 (ill.).

American Impressionism. Exh. cat., The Henry Art Gallery. Seattle, 1980, no. 39.

Ratcliff, Carter. John Singer Sargent. New York, 1982 (pl. 137).

John Singer Sargent. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1986, pp. 177 (fig. 75).

Adelson, Warren, Stanley Olson, and Richard Ormond. Sargent at Broadway: The Impressionist Years. New York, 1986, p. 39 (pl. XII).

Masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Exh. cat., Bunkamura Museum of Art. Tokyo, 1989, no, 72 (ill.).

McConkey, Kenneth. British Impressionism. London, 1989, pp. 72-73 (pl. 70).

Sargent. Exh. cat., Tate Gallery. London, 1998, pp. 29, 111-113, no. 31.

American Beauty: Painting and Sculpture from the Detroit Institute of Arts 1770-1920. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 2002, pp. 84, 86, no. 61.

Madsen, Annelise K. John Singer Sargent & Chicago's Gilded Age. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 2017, pp. 152-154 (fig. 131).

Kindly share your feedback or any additional information, as this record is still a work in progress and may need further refinement.

Suggest Feedback

Catalogue Raisoneé

Please note: This section is empty

Credit Line for Reproduction

John Singer Sargent, Home Fields, ca. 1885, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 21.72.

Home Fields
Home Fields