The Wilfrid de Glehn estate is represented by
David Messum Fine Art Ltd.
London
England
 |
                          |
On these visits to the continent Jane’s friendship with Sargent deepened. He admired her spirited conversation, her determination and resourcefulness, and he painted her often, most notably in The Sketchers (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond), in In the Garden, Corfu (formerly Terra Museum of Fine Art, Chicago) and in The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, (1907; The Art Institute of Chicago). In October of 1904 Jane wrote from Venice to her mother with delight,
Excuse this wobbly pencil, I am writing in a gondola. We went out sketching with Sargent the other day and he made a water colour of me at the end of the gondola. Awfully clever. There is really no face. It is all white veil and hat, but it is deliciously done.
Similarly, in August of 1907, Jane wrote to her mother,
Yesterday I spent all day posing in the morning in Turkish costume for Sargent on the mossy banks of the brook. I and Rose-Marie, one of the little Ormondes. He is doing a harem disporting itself on the banks of a stream. He has stacks of lovely oriental clothes and dresses anyone he can set in them. It is marvellous to watch him paint. In the afternoon I posed for Wil also by the brook in a white dress, parasol etc. He did a lovely sketch and is going on with it today.
Wilfrid painted Jane on numerous occasions throughout their life together, and Jane drew Wilfrid very often, playing the piano or playing chess with their guests and in moments of repose.
Morning (detail), c. 1905
In 1905 Jane was hospitalised for a short time in Paris, and Wilfrid painted some touching paintings of her while she recovered back in London. The exact nature of her ailment remains unknown, but it is thought that she suffered either a miscarriage or a complication during an appendectomy. Whichever was the case, the couple remained without children.
