A small but exceptional watercolor by John Singer Sargent made a big splash at Christie's 20th Century Evening Sale, selling for $7.2 million including fees and setting a new auction record for works on paper by the American artist. The 14-by-20-inch painting titled "Gondoliers' Siesta" (1902-03) became the surprising highlight of an otherwise predictable evening that saw a Rothko sell for $62 million and a Matisse reach three times its estimate.
The energy in the auction room shifted dramatically when Lot 19 came up for bidding. Auctioneer Adrien Meyer demonstrated skillful showmanship during a four-minute bidding war, at one point instructing a floor bidder to "Look at it," while gesturing to the image displayed behind him. When the hammer finally fell at $6 million (before fees), the room erupted in applause and cheers, an unusual reaction for such a modestly sized work that represented just one percent of the auction's $690 million total.
Art advisor Ray Waterhouse, who won the piece on behalf of a private American art collector, explained the appeal from his taxi ride back to Christie's the following morning. "Many Sargent watercolors, rather like Matisse oils, are wonderful, but they have a small imperfection or flaw," he said. "The Matisse might have slightly unbeautiful hands or arms. We are not asking for perfection, but this was just perfect in every way."
The watercolor came directly from the collection of Carol and Terry Wall, patrons of the Montclair Art Museum, and had never before appeared at public auction. Waterhouse revealed that his client was prepared to guarantee the work for $4 million, topping the previous record for a Sargent work on paper set in 2022, also at Christie's. However, the consigners declined the guarantee, confident the piece would perform well. "I know the person who had sold it to the consignor," Waterhouse noted. "He raved about it as the best Venetian watercolor he'd ever seen. We agreed. And so we bid strongly."
The painting depicts two gondoliers in a rare moment of rest, with one reclining gently in his boat against the backdrop of Venice's iconic architecture. Christie's Head of American Art Tylee Abbott praised the work for its "juxtaposition of architectural views and human figures" and its masterful handling of watercolor, "a notably unforgiving medium." Abbott highlighted how Sargent "deftly tackled the minutiously rendered details of a Palladian façade and the loose, confident washes of the water's reflection."
Sargent produced hundreds of watercolors throughout his career, many exploring his fascination with Venice and the gondoliers who navigated its winding canals. Abbott explained that watercolors played a crucial role in bringing Sargent's work to American audiences. Although the artist was born in Italy to American parents and had already achieved success in Europe, a 1909 New York exhibition sparked what Abbott described as "a sort of gold rush" for Sargent's Venetian watercolors in the United States.
Major American museums quickly recognized the appeal of these works. The Brooklyn Museum acquired 83 pieces from that groundbreaking 1909 show, while the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston purchased 45 works from the subsequent exhibition. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also moved swiftly to build its collection of Sargent watercolors during this period.
The record-breaking sale comes during the centennial year of Sargent's death, which has been marked by major exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and other prestigious institutions. This timing coincides with what many consider a contemporary resurgence of interest in the American artist's work.
Paul Fisher, a Sargent biographer and professor of American Studies at Wellesley College, provided historical context for the artist's fluctuating reputation. "Sargent went into an eclipse shortly after his death and until the 1980s," Fisher told Hyperallergic. "People thought of him as the painter of choice for plutocrats and aristocrats, or as old-fashioned, even though he was in his generation a very modern painter in Paris." The postmodern period brought a reappraisal of Sargent's legacy, led largely by his grandnephew Richard Ormond.
Fisher described "Gondoliers' Siesta" as one of the most unusual paintings in Sargent's series depicting gondoliers. Beyond being popular working-class subjects, "gondoliers were the sex symbol of the late 19th-century," Fisher explained. "They were outdoorsy, they were independent, they were scoundrely, people projected all kinds of things on them." However, this particular work stands apart from others in the series for its emphasis on tranquility rather than dynamic movement.
"There are lots of [watercolors] of rowing figures with their poles, but this is more of an intimate view, almost a personal view," Fisher continued. "We have the two gondoliers lounging in their gondolas, with this marvelous vista of Venice in the background – It's very evocative and luminous."
Abbott acknowledged that historical American art typically attracts fewer headlines than other collecting categories, making the attention garnered by the Sargent watercolor particularly meaningful. "When a truly great work gets its due, it's a special moment," he said. The success continued the following day when another Sargent work on paper sold for $304,000 at Christie's Day sale, tripling its high estimate.
Despite Sargent's prolific output – his complete catalogue raisonné spans nine volumes – Abbott emphasized the rarity of works of this caliber. "There is a John Singer Sargent watercolor sold in almost every auction, every year," he noted. "But how many like this are left? Very, very few, if any. It's a singular work."
The sale demonstrated that even in uncertain market conditions, collectors remain willing to compete fiercely for exceptional works that combine impeccable provenance, pristine condition, and outstanding artistic quality. The four-minute bidding battle for "Gondoliers' Siesta" provided a brief but powerful disruption to the prevailing narrative of market challenges, proving that truly special pieces can still generate excitement and command premium prices in today's art world.
