William George Simmonds

In 1911, after the premature death of his friend and fellow artist Edwin Austin Abbey, John Singer Sargent completed Abbey's unfinished murals for the Pennsylvania State Capitol. According to David McKibbin, the sitter for the present work, William George Simmonds, had been Abbey’s assistant on the project, and the present work is "a study of shade cast across his face by a cardboard cut to represent William Penn’s hat." (Sargent’s Boston, With an Essay & a Biographical Summary & a Complete Check List of Sargent’s Portraits, Boston, Massachusetts, 1956, p. 123) Abbey's sketches for the commission, as well as a charcoal portrait of Abbey by Sargent, are in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

This charcoal drawing has been reviewed and accepted by the John Singer Sargent Catalogue Raisonné Committee.