Object ID: 90.026
Creator: Unidentified photographer (after John Singer Sargent)
Title: Portrait of Herbert Haseltine
Date: 1920-1943
Culture: American
Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5″
Materials: Photograph (ink on paper)
Credit: Gift of Monawee Allen Richards, Class of 1934
Provenance: 1943, gift of the artist to Mrs. Helen Sampson Gillette; 1943-1975, collection of Mrs. Gillette; 1975, inherited by Monawee Allen Richards; 1990, donated to Wheaton College
Provenance research conducted by Liam Grace-Flood, Sandra Grullon, and Audrey Spina, Class of 2017
Near the end of his career, John Singer Sargent sketched a profile drawing of the American sculptor Herbert Haseltine. The well-known portrait painter signed the work, “to my friend Haseltine/John S. Sargent 1920.” At some point, Haseltine had a photographic reproduction made of the drawing. He then signed the photograph, “To Helen, one of the few real friends – Herbert Haseltine/1943” and gave it to Mrs. Helen Sampson Gillette. Student research indicates that Gillette also acquired Haseltine’s 1961 sculpture Arab Foal (Filly). Both the photograph and sculpture were later inherited by Monawee Allen Richards (1912-1994), who donated the photograph to the college in 1990. Upon her death on 15 February 1994, the Haseltine sculpture was left to Wheaton as a bequest.