Bringing Down Marble from the Quarries to Carrara

John Singer Sargent

1911 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Sargent consolidated many on-the-spot studies of workers into this depiction of the grueling labor, conducted without modern technology, at the historic Italian quarries. He suggests scale within the massive landscape in his placement of the workers at opposite ends of the ropes— stretched diagonally across the composition— used to lower marble blocks from the quarry. A friend described the artist’s devotion to the subject: "[Sargent] slept for weeks in a hut so completely devoid of all ordinary comforts that his companions, far younger men, fled after a few days, unable to stand the Spartan rigors tolerated by their senior with such serene indifference."

Artist

John Singer Sargent

Date

1911

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917