Bringing Down Marble from the Quarries to Carrara  1911

Sargent consolidated many on-the-spot studies of workers into this depiction of the grueling labor, conducted without modern technology, at the historic Italian quarries. A friend recalled the artist’s devotion to the subject: “While painting at the Carrara marble quarries, [Sargent] slept for weeks in a hut so completely devoid of all ordinary comforts that his companions...