1856 Florence, Italy - 1925 London, England. Known for: Portrait, figure, landscape and mural painting.Born in Florence, Italy to a New England doctor and wife, John Singer Sargent became a leading portrait and figure painter of subjects in international society during the Gilded Age. Late in his career, he was a leading proponent of watercolor as a respectable medium for finished work.His American parents lived in Europe most of their lives and followed the social season between the capital cities. Traveling continuously with his parents, he showed early art talent and was encouraged by his mother, an amateur painter. In Rome at age 12, he studied with Carl Welsch, a German-American artist and in 1870 at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. In Paris, he was accepted in 1874 at the Ecole des Beaux Arts but switched to the less academically oriented atelier of Carolus Duran, who had major impact on Sargent's style. Duran was an adventurous portrait painter who blended realism with a certain freedom of style.Watercolor on paper 14x10.5 in. Frame:27x23.5 in.