John Singer Sargent, “Mountain Stream”, 1912-1914, Watercolor and Graphite on Off-White Wove Paper, 34.8 x 53.3 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

“Mountain Stream” is one of Sargent’s most dazzling images based on the theme of flowing water. This exhibition watercolor, which the artist sold to the Metropolitan Museum, differs from his many anonymous views of streams in its inclusion of a bather, which suggests a specific time and place. However, its precise setting cannot be identified; in the early 1910s, when this watercolor was probably made, Sargent painted in the Alps of France, Italy and Austria.