WHEN A FRIEND invited us to join him at London’s Kenwood House to view an exhibition of portraits by the artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), I had some misgivings. In the not-too-distant past I saw an exhibition of his portraits at the Tate Britain, and I left it unimpressed. In that show, the portraits were displayed alongside the dresses that the sitters had worn for their pictures. In contrast, the show, which is on at Kenwood until 5 October 2025, was very satisfying.

Between 1870 and 1914, 102 American women married men in the British peerage, and more than this married into the British upper class. Put bluntly, the men were enriched by their American brides’ money, and the ladies acquired social positions that were highly regarded in British society. Regarding these marriages, Theodore Rooseveldt said:

“I thoroughly dislike … these international marriages … which are not even matches of esteem and liking, but which are based upon the sale of the girl for her money and the purchase of the man for his title.”

Sargent, the artist, made portraits of more than thirty of these brides, and it is a selection of these that are on display at Kenwood in an exhibition appropriately named “Heiress. Sargent’s American Portraits”. Each picture is accompanied by an information panel that gives interesting biographical details about the ladies.

Undoubtedly, Sargent’s grand portraits made with oil paints on canvas are superb. However, even better than these, and there are several on display at Kenwood, are his charcoal sketches. Unlike the paintings that required the subject to attend 6 or more sittings, the charcoal portraits were completed in one sitting. Despite or maybe because of the rapidity of completing the charcoal images, these portraits seem to be even more expressive than the oil paintings upon which he had spent far more time. During a period of 20 years, he completed almost 700 charcoal portraits. Although there might have been one or two of his charcoal portraits at the Tate exhibition, a great proportion of the exhibits at Kenwood were examples of Sargent’s superb charcoal technique. For me, the highlights of this small exhibition were the works executed in charcoal.

I left the show at Kenwood feeling pleased that I had been, and with a greater appreciation of Sargent’s talent than I had before.