After John SINGER SARGENT Portrait of Henry James, 1913 Vintage gelatin-silver bromide print mounted on cardboard Signed at the bottom of the sheet by Henry James and John Singer Sargent 32.5 x 26 cm Sheet: 50.5 x 38 cm Sargent's portrait was commissioned in 1913 by a group of his friends in honor of his seventieth birthday. James agreed to pose on condition that the portrait be donated to the National Portrait Gallery (if they would accept it, which they did). James then arranged for one of these prints to be sent to all the subscribers, including Mrs Lee Childe, as attested by a letter stuck to the back.) Henry James was a friend of Edward Lee Childe. He frequented the couple Blanche and Edward, visiting them at the Château de Varennes (one of the châteaux belonging to the Triqueti family, in the Gâtinais region). After Edward's remarriage to Marie de Sartiges, he continued to maintain relations with the Lee Childe family. His extensive correspondence, some of which has been published, bears witness to this. Provenance: Château du Perthuis. Note: Blanche's family and friendship with Valentine de Laborde brought her into close contact with the literary circles around Mérimée in the second half of the 19th century. She herself published several texts, notably in the Revue des Deux Mondes, including Impressions de Voyage, 1882, Le général Robert E. Lee (1873) and Un Hiver au Caire, Journal de voyage en Egypte, 1883, published by Calmann Lévy. It was her novelistic correspondence with Pierre Loti that made her a part of literary history. Edited by Hervé Duchêne in 2022 (Blanche Lee Childe, Pierre Loti, Ah! cher Loti, croyez-moi, le Masque avait du bon. Correspondance (Le Passeur)), this epistolary exchange between a mysterious oriental masked stranger ("Oirda, la Rose") and a young sailor-writer leads to a frank friendship. Blanche even provided the proofreading for Mon frère Yves and, after her tragic death, was the subject of a tribute to the memory of Madame Lee Childe as an introduction to Propos d'exil in 1887 (lot 75).