Wild Olive Tree Roots, Valldemosa, Majorca

1908

John Singer Sargent

Artist, American, 1856 - 1925

Gnarled, ash-brown roots woven through a muddy, rocky bank and sprays of dark green leaves fill this loosely painted, horizontal landscape. Touches of spring green in the lower right corner suggest ground cover. The roots grip the rocks in the top left quadrant of the composition, and layers of rocks pile to the right. The space behind the trees is dark brown, and a few touches of burnt orange suggest flowers or turning leaves.

Media Options

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By 1900, John Singer Sargent’s notoriety as a portrait painter had earned him a ceaseless flow of commissions from prominent families in both England and the United States. But he grew tired of the demands and restrictions of these grand manner portraits, and began spending part of each year in Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Spain. On these trips, Sargent completed a number of vibrant plein-air oil paintings. Wild Olive Tree Roots, Valldemosa, Majorca was painted during the autumn of 1908, when the artist accompanied his sister Emily and her friend on a trip to Valldemosa, a small town in Majorca, part of the Balearic Isles off the east coast of Spain.

This expressive study reflects Sargent’s assertion that “enormous views and huge skies do not tempt me.” Avoiding the broad, panoramic views of conventional landscape compositions, the artist instead used vibrant colors and loose brushstrokes to depict a small patch of rocky ground tangled with vegetation. With its freedom of subject matter and technique, Wild Olive Tree Roots, Valldemosa, Majorca reveals a different side of the artist best known for his formal society portraits.

More information on this painting (under the previous title Valdemosa, Majorca: Thistles and Herbage on a Hillside) can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II, pages 122-125, which is available as a free PDF (21MB).

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Estate of the artist; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 24 and 27 July 1925, first day, no. 105); (M. Knoedler & Company, London and New York) on joint account with (T.H. Robinson); sold 1958 to Thomas K. Ware; by inheritance 1963 to his wife, Lenore Caldwell Woodcock, Huntington, New York;[1] (Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 25 April 1980, no. 77); private collection, Brookline, Massachusetts; (Jeffrey R. Brown Fine Arts, North Amherst, Massachusetts), in 1981; Virginia Bailey Brown, North Amherst, Massachusetts;[2] gift/purchase 1991 to NGA.
[1] Mrs. Ware's second husband was William A. Woodcock, and they lent the painting to the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, from August 1967 to March 1974 (letter of 26 August 1996 and telephone call of 19 February 1997 from William Titus, registrar, Heckscher Museum of Art [in NGA curatorial files]).
[2] The painting was briefly discussed in An American Gallery, Spring 1987 (Richard York Gallery, New York, 1987), no. 15. This dealer handled the sale of the painting for its last private owner.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1925

  • Exhibition of Paintings by the Late John Singer Sargent, R.A., M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1925, no. 5.

1938

  • A Century of American Landscape Paintings, 1800-1900, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1938, no. 61.

1967

  • Extended loan, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, Long Island, New York, 1967-1974.

1982

  • American Impressionism, Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1982.

1983

  • John Singer Sargent Drawings, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1983.

Bibliography

1927

  • Charteris, Evan. John Sargent. New York: Scribner's, 1927, p. 289, as Valdemosa, Majorca (Thistles and Herbage on Hillside).

1969

  • Mount, Charles Merrill. John Singer Sargent: A Biography. Rev. ed. New York, 1969: 473, as Roots, Valdemosa (originally published 1955).

1998

  • Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 122-125, color repro.

  • Ormond, Richard, and Elaine Kilmurray. John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1908-1913. The Complete Paintings, Volume VIII. New Haven and London, 2014: no. 1487, repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 339, no. 273, color repro.

2009

  • Martindale, Meredith. John Singer Sargent a Mallorca. Mallorca, 2009: 47, 122, color repro. 37.

2022

  • Cash, Sarah. "Exhibitions." Art for the Nation no. 66 (Fall 2022): 34-35, repro.

Inscriptions

on reverse, visible before relining: estate stamp

Wikidata ID

Q20191207

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