Cashmere – was painted in 1908 by the celebrated American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), considered the leading portrait painter for his evocations of Edwardian luxury.
The painting shows a young girl draped in a large Cashmere shawl moving in a grass landscape, each figure in a different pose and looking another way. No conclusive interpretation has been given to this enigmatic image. The model for all the seven figures in this painting is the same girl, Sargent’s eleven-year-old niece Rose Marie Michel. She is believed to have been his favorite niece and a frequent model for his paintings before her unfortunate death at a Paris bombing during the First World War.
Large men’s shawls as seen in the painting were woven in Kashmir and Punjab regions of India and were a major fashion accessory in the west in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Coincidentally one of the major revivalist’s of the art of Kashmir shawl weaving in India today is Sargent’s grandniece Jenny Housego and Asif Ali of Kashmirloom Company.
This painting is at the Bill Gates Collection. Size 27.5 X 42.5 inches.