Mrs Wertheimer

Mrs Wertheimer of 1904 rounds out the Wertheimer family series with a portrait of the matriarch — Flora Wertheimer, Asher's wife. Coming at the end of the extended project, this portrait carries the weight of a completed family document: the patriarch had been immortalised first, then each of the children, and finally the mother. Flora Wertheimer is depicted with the warmth and ease that characterised the most intimate Wertheimer portraits, the formal commission relaxed by years of familiarity between the family and their artist. The complete series, now at Tate, remains one of the greatest family portrait commissions in British art.

The portrait of Flora Wertheimer shows Sargent's particular ability with older female sitters — the face is rendered honestly, its years legible, but with evident sympathy and respect. The formal dress and accessories appropriate to the matriarch of a prosperous family are handled with his usual confident summary. The composition has the settled quality of a final statement in a long conversation.