Mrs Frank Millet (Elizabeth Merrill)

Sargent's portrait of Mrs Frank Millet (Elizabeth Merrill, 1885) depicts the wife of his close friend Frank Millet — the American painter whose Broadway, Worcestershire, home was the base of the artistic colony where 'Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose' was painted. The Millet household was central to Sargent's English social world in the mid-1880s, and Elizabeth Millet as the mistress of that household would have been a familiar presence during the intensive work on the twilight painting. The portrait is therefore an intimate document of this important period in Sargent's career.

Sargent's portrait of his friend's wife would carry the informal quality of social intimacy — a portrait painted in familiar circumstances rather than as a formal commission. His alla prima handling brings characteristic freshness to the likeness, and the relaxed nature of the social relationship may have permitted a directness of psychological observation that formal commission subjects sometimes inhibited.