I require minimal encouragement to go to Paris at any time, and the prospect of attending a show of Sargent’s paintings at the Musée d’Orsay made the idea irresistible.  John Singer Sargent was as prolific as he was successful as a portraitist.
His precocious talent brought him to the attention of the European art establishment.  From 1874 until 1884, Singer studied and worked in Paris.  There he perfected his technique while producing some of his most celebrated and even notorious paintings.

        We took care to obtain timed entry tickets to the Sargent exhibition well in advance of our Atlantic crossing.  As we had arranged to gain admission to the museum in the afternoon, we took advantage of the superb weather that morning to stroll through the Jardín des Tuileries, the Tuileries Gardens.

        Marie de Medici, the Queen of France, had the Italianate gardens created in 1564.  She was the second wife of Henri IV, a king prominent in Parisian history.  Queen Marie was one in a succession of royal residents of the Palais des Tuileries (Tuileries Palace), the city home for France’s ruling dynasties for 300 years.  The palace was burned down by Communard rioters in 1871.  Happily, the gardens remain,  now as a park to delight Parisians and tourists alike.  We were privileged to add to their number, admiring the statuary, plantings and fountains.

        The Musée d’Orsay was once a train station.  Its Beaux-Arts architecture already was becoming outmoded when the station opened in 1900.  Since 1974, the former Gare d’Orsay has housed the world’s largest collection of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.  Even without the allure of the Sargent show, we would have wanted to renew our acquaintance with the Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Sisley, and Caillebotte paintings — among many others — that grace the Musée d’Orsay’s walls.

      Born in Florence to American parents, Sargent returned to Italy frequently. 

  Sargent painted A Street in Venice around 1882, in oils on a wood panel.

The Portrait of Madame Ramon Subercaseaux earned
Sargent a medal at the Salon of 1881.

His Portrait of the Daughters of Edward Darley Bolt reveals the influence of Velasquez, an artist whom Singer studied and revered.

I could see all the way across Paris to Montmartre from the roof of the Musée d’Orsay.