Charles Stuart Forbes

This engaging oil sketch of the American painter Charles Stuart Forbes, whom the artist met in Paris during the early 1880s, demonstrates John Singer Sargent's masterful ability to capture his subjects' likenesses with a bold, economical use of the brush. The off-center placement of the sitter gives the work a casual atmosphere, as though it were done spontaneously, and the personal inscription scratched into the then-wet paint adds to the sense of intmacy. The wall-mounted container above Forbes's right shoulder appears to contain paintbrushes, indicating that the setting may be an artist's studio, decorated with an Oriental-style carpet.