John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925), circa 1917-20
Study of a Seated Male Model/Thomas E. McKeller
signed 'John S. Sargent' lower left
charcoal on heavy paper
20 3/4 x 15 1/4 in.
framed 31 1/4 x 24 3/4 x 1 in.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Douglas Berman, New York.
Jay Hyde Crawford, New York (purchased from the latter, 1987).
By descent to the current private collection.

Literature
John Esten, John Singer Sargent: The Male Nudes (Universe Publishing, New York, 1999), pp. 68-9 (illustrated).

N.B.
Thomas Eugene McKeller (1890-1962) met John Singer Sargent in Boston in 1916 and posed for most of the figures in Sargent's murals for the Museum of Fine Arts. Sargent gifted some of the resulting preparatory drawings to his dear friend and patron Isabella Stewart Gardner, and the relationship between model and artist was examined in the 2020 exhibition Boston's Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent mounted by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. This example served as a study for the only oil on canvas depiction of McKeller, dated 1917-21, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, likely a study for one of the roundels in the MFA murals.

The sheet is gently toned and the surface has been lightly sprayed with a fixative. This has resulted in yellowing of the sheet around the figure, most noticeable around his head and the signature. Scattered pale fox marks. Sheet laid down to cardboard.