Tom Roche's Homage To Sargent

Homage to Sargent by Tom Roche

John Singer Sargent was one of the great painters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century. He was most popular as a portrait painter and the rich and famous queued up to be
immortalised on canvas by him. He worked with confidence and a loaded brush and was
a hard act to follow . The picture I chose to copy is the portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw,
the original measures 127 x 101 (50" x 39") and hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland.
Its first appearance was in 1893. R.A.M. Stevenson wrote in 'The Art Journal' at the time
“ As a portrait, a decorative pattern, or a piece of well-engineered impressionistic painting,
it tops everything in the Academy”.

My Homage to this master was to include a gold pocket watch and amber necklace of the
period and a carnation representing the flower in the sitter's hand. His crayon study for
The Virgin of the Nativity was for his mural in the Boston Public Library. The small dark red
circle to the left of drawing is from his wine glass!

Lady Agnew by John Singer Sargent

Tom Roche


Tom Roche left the world of advertising in the seventies to become a full-time artist and has
had exhibitions here and abroad. In the nineties he taught and lectured in Dun Laoghaire
Institute of Design and Technology and has also lectured on watercolour painting in the
National Gallery of Ireland. Tom Roche can be contacted here by email.