Art: Woman

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"Claptrap compared with this woman!" Thus Major Sir William Orpen, R. A., R. I., British painter, last week dismissed Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" in favor of a hitherto unknown Sargent just purchased by him. The subject of the new study of mystic woman is a Spanish peasant, young, beautiful, sorrowing. "Here we have a real woman," said Sir William authoritatively, "soul, body, love, motherhood, all one can desire." If Sir William is right (and it is said he has already refused for the picture five times the price he paid for it) then the U. S. had in expatriate John Singer Sargent an even greater son than it knew. For years, the Sargent portraits of the Wertheimer family have ranked easily as the most masterly modern examples in " their 'field, dazzling works which all-inspiring visitors to London, eager to do right, seek out.. And this painter's newly discovered "real woman" is, said Sir William, "the greatest picture Sargent ever produced."