Weir and Sargent: from Paris to Connecticut

7/8/25 - Acquisitions - New London, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum - Among the American artists who studied in Léon Gérôme’s studio in Paris, Julian Alden Weir and John Singer Sargent became friends in the early 1870s. The former regarded the latter as “one of his most talented fellow students [1]”, though perhaps not the most gifted; in another letter to his mother, Weir spoke of the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt in almost identical terms: to him, he was “the most talented and well-balanced student” he had ever met.
Julian Alden Weir and John Singer Sargent met again in the United States, in New York and in Connecticut, more specifically near Ridgefield, where Weir settled in 1882 and welcomed several artists to his large home. A photograph testifies to the enduring nature of their…