A charcoal head and shoulders portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales, turned to left, with short hair, suit and tie. Signed and dated along bottom: John S. Sargent / 1920.

John Singer Sargent was renowned for his dazzling bravura paintings of society beauties, artists, writers and statesmen of the 1880s and 1890s. Stretched thin by by a constant demand for his work and keen to move away from portraiture, by 1920 Sargent was declining almost all commissions for paintings, offering a charcoal portrait instead. Typically completed in a single two-hour sitting, these drawings became as sought after as Sargent’s paintings among his high society patrons.