Catalogue Entry
Johnson’s portraits of children and adolescents were often part of a larger commission to paint whole families. In some instances, the children had died and their parents wished to have a reminder of their loved ones. —PH
Adelson Galleries information sheet, undated: "Johnson depicts Daisy peering out beguilingly at the viewer, standing before a sumptuous green drapery with her hands clasped behind her back. She wears an immaculate white dress whose delicate upper layer, with its alternating Greek Key motif, allows Johnson to demonstrate his mastery at conveying texture and pattern. The painting’s extraordinarily large size suggests the grandeur of the household environment in which it was intended to hang, further evoking the world of a wealthy young girl in the late nineteenth century."
2008-09-26: Scumbling on white dress. Lace different from Daisy with arms in front. Eyes: highlight on left eye.
Marguerite "Daisy" Hyde Leiter, Countess of Suffolk (1879–1968). Younger daughter of Levi Zeigler Leiter of Washington, co-founder of the Marshall Field department store chain [Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: Portraits of the 1890s (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 142] and his wife Mary Theresa Carver [Frick Art Reference Library]. Married Henry Molyneux Paget Howard (m. 1904), the nineteenth Earl of Suffolk and twelfth Earl of Berkshire [Ormond]. The sitter was a relative of the artist [Frick Art Reference Library]. “After she was widowed in 1917, Daisy returned to America, taking up residence in Tucson, Arizona until her death in 1968” [Adelson Galleries].
- Portrait pose: