  About the Artwork
  
  
  Mosquito Nets is a beautiful example of Sargent’s ability to translate a momentary impression into a masterful composition. The picture represents the artist’s sister Emily with her friend Eliza Wedgwood, a member of the famous porcelain manufacturing family. It was painted in Valdemosa, Majorca, where the three were spending an autumn holiday. There, in Eliza’s words, “Sargent painted in oils such an amusing picture of Emily and me—in what John called ‘Garde Mangers,’ Emily’s invention for keeping out mosquitoes.” In this intimate and affectionate view, we see the women close-up and at a diagonal angle, reminiscent of “snapshot” views used by Cassatt and Degas. Emily is seated in an armchair and rests against one of the red pillows from the sofa beside her; Eliza is reclining on the sofa.
  
  
  Title
  Mosquito Nets
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1908
  
  Artist
  John Singer Sargent
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1856-1925
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 22 1/2 × 28 1/4 inches (57.2 × 71.8 cm)
  Framed: 36 1/4 × 42 1/4 × 3 inches (92.1 × 107.3 × 7.6 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, General Membership Fund, Gibbs-Williams Fund, Laura H. Murphy Fund, Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Fund, Elizabeth P. Kirby Fund, Elizabeth and Allen Shelden Fund, Merill Fund; gifts from Charles Willis Ward, Mrs. Gustavus D. Pope, Kate Minor, Newhouse Galleries, Miss Julia E.Peck, Detroit and Wayne County Tuberculosis Foundation, Anonymous Donor, Paul H. Townsend, Mrs. John L. Gardner, City of Detroit, Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, Mrs. George Kamperman, Mrs. Theodore Chapin Beebe, Recess Club, Mrs. Benjamin Goldberg, Mr. and Mrs. James O. Keene, Mrs. Mathias J. Alten, Mrs. Arthur McGraw, Mrs. E. Murray McKay, Mr. David Gray, Percy K. Loud, Mrs. William T. Barbour, Lawrence A. Fleischman, Mrs. Henry Gallison, Lillian Henkel Haass, Archives of American Art, Mr. Phillip Gray, Mrs. William R. Kales, Mr. and Mrs Harold O. Love, Mrs. George Hendrie, Mrs. Walter Shirlaw, Harrington Fitzgerald, Mrs. Lendall Pitts, Walter Piper, Gilbert M. Frimet, Colonel Frank J. Hecker, Mr. and Mrs. Edgar B. Whitcomb, Mrs. Mary B. Longyear, Edgar P. Richardson, John S. Newberry, Miss Florence Babbit, Margaret C. Horn, Armand H. Griffith, Mrs. William E. Scripps, Anne Goldthwaite, Miss Euphemia Holden, and Mr. and Mrs. James S. Holden, by exchange.
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  1993.18
  
  
  Copyright
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