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Title:Edward R. Bacon (1846–1915)
Artist:Anders Zorn (Swedish, Mora 1860–1920 Mora)
Date:1897
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:48 1/4 x 35 1/4 in. (122.6 x 89.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Virginia Purdy Bacon, 1919
Object Number:19.112
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Zorn 1897
the sitter, Edward R. Bacon, New York (1897–d. 1915); his sister-in-law, Mrs. Walter Rathbone Bacon, New York (1915–d. 1919)
Paris. Salon. April 24–?, 1897, no. 1272 (as "Portrait de M. E.-R. B.").
Valencia. Centro del Carmen. "Retratos de La Belle Époque," April 5–June 26, 2011, no. 23.
CaixaForum Barcelona. "Retratos de La Belle Époque," July 19–October 9, 2011, no. 23.
Anders Zorn. Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner. [early 1897] [see Eze 2013], states that he is starting a portrait of a man [possibly this work] the next day in New York.
James B. Townsend and W. Stanton Howard. Memorial Catalogue of Paintings By Old and Modern Masters Collected by Edward R. Bacon. New York, 1919, ill. (frontispiece).
Karl Asplund. Anders Zorn: His Life and Work. Ed. Geoffrey Holme. London, 1921, p. 44.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 104.
Hans Henrik Brummer, ed. Självbiografiska anteckningar.. By Anders Zorn. Stockholm, 1982, pp. 94, 204 n. 3.
Hans Henrik Brummer. Till ögats fröjd och nationens förgyllning: Anders Zorn. Stockholm, 1994, pp. 203, 299, 329 n.14, quotes a letter from the sitter to Zorn discussing the reception of his portrait and the portrait of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Walter Rathbone Bacon (MMA 17.204), at the 1897 Salon.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 224, ill.
Anders Zorn. Självbiografiska anteckningar. Ed. Birgitta Sandström. Mora, Sweden, 2004, p. 147, ill. p. 282 (color).
Sven Lidbeck. Anders Zorn Etchings. Stockholm, 2007, p. 154, under no. ZG 116, identifies it as the source for an etching by Zorn.
William Hagans and Willow Hagans. Zorn in America: A Swedish Impressionist of the Gilded Age. Chicago, 2009, p. 117, describes the sitter and portrait, translating a letter from the sitter to Zorn regarding its reception at the 1897 Salon; reproduces a related etching.
Magne Malmanger inPortraits of the Belle Epoque. Exh. cat., Centro del Carmen, Valencia. Madrid, 2011, pp. 124–25, no. 23, ill. (color).
Oliver Tostmann inAnders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America. Ed. Oliver Tostmann. Exh. cat., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Boston, 2013, p. 16 n. 13, states that Zorn adapted Manet's portrait of Antonin Proust (1880, Toledo Museum of Art) in this portrait.
Anne-Marie Eze inAnders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America. Ed. Oliver Tostmann. Exh. cat., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Boston, 2013, pp. 65, 86, 180, publishes Zorn 1897 and identifies The Met's painting as the portrait of a man discussed in the letter; notes it as a compositional source for Zorn's portrait of Edward Livingstone Davis (sold Sotheby's, New York, May 23, 1997, no. 350).
Zorn produced an etching after the portrait in 1897, illustrated in Karl Asplund, Zorn's Engraved Work: Descriptive Catalogue, Stockholm, vol. 1, 1920, p. 189, no. 116.
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