Sargent's Women

Four Lives Behind the Canvas

By: Donna M. Lucey

Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley

With unprecedented access to newly discovered sources, Donna M. Lucey illuminates the lives of four extraordinary women painted by the iconic high-society portraitist John Singer Sargent. With uncanny clairvoyance, Sargent's portraits hint at the mysteries, passions, and tragedies that unfolded in his subjects' lives.

Sequestered in a fantasy-land castle in the remote Rocky Mountains, Elsie Palmer carried on a labyrinthine love life; Elizabeth Chanler stepped into a maze of infidelity with her best friend's husband; as the veiled image of Sally Fairchild - beautiful, commanding, and poison-tongued - emerged on Sargent's canvas, the power of his artistry lured her sister Lucia into an ill-fated life in art; shrewd, iron-willed Isabella Stewart Gardner collected both art and young men. Born to unimaginable wealth, these women lived on an operatic scale, and their letters and diaries create a rich depiction of the Gilded Age and the acclaimed but secretive painter whose canvases defined the era.

©2017 Donna M. Lucey (P)2017 HighBridge, A Division of Recorded Books

Fascinating Book / Wrong Narrator

This is a well-written story about the lives of women of the Gilded Age who all had their portraits painted by Sargent. The author has done an excellent job of wading through masses of primary documents to give us an intimate portrait of a unique period in history. Unfortunately, the quality of the narration undercuts the writing as the operative approach to the narration is melodramatic and is frustrating to listen to. There is a dismissiveness towards the women inherent in the narration that manifests itself in the officious way in which the narrator chooses to express the heartfelt experiences expressed by these women in their letters and diaries. In other words, the narration makes the writing sound like a soap opera and does not do justice to the poignancy of what is being expressed. Yes, these women lived in an age of excess, but their stories do not deserve to be minimized by the overall tone taken by the narrator. I listened to it all and now intend to buy it in hardcover to have the portraits present as the stories are being told and to reread it without the narrator’s voice in my head.

Great portrait of the gilded age

This ends up being more about the gilded age than the art, but I found it fascinating. The downside was the narrator who almost seemed to be making fun of either the people or the book. After a while I grew accustomed to her, but maybe the next time around she could camp it up less. Also this audio book needs a pdf of the portraits...

A triumph

Donna Lucey has done it, total immersion into the world of the gilded age.

Interesting…

…but could get bogged down and tedious. And the narrator, whenever reading a quote, used a different cartoon-character voice. It was not a bad book, just not a riveting book.

Detail of the Age

Learning more these days about Sargent this note only adds to that body but provides even more about this age and this contemporaries. Well done