Sergeant and the Boit Daughters

This painting is a masterful show of sergeant's gifts as a painter, and his ability to rend fabrics and surfaces. But more to the point, our expectation that when we see a sitter in a portrait, we see them at their finest hammers home how artificial a conventional portrait really is. We can practically walk right into their frame. Their reactions to us viewers feel so authentic that they remove this artificial barrier of traditional portraiture. And creating a space that makes you feel like you can walk right in is what brings us back to this not quite a domestic interior scene.