John Singer Sargent, The Misses Vickers, 1884

An oil painting of three women in formal Victorian dress. They are sitting informally next to each other - two women are sharing a chair and looking at a book, and the third woman is sitting on a chair behind them. The painting has a dark background, with the outline of a dresser on which sits a silver jug and a porcelain bowl.

John Singer Sargent, The Misses Vickers, 1884 © Sheffield Museums

Discover one of the best-loved artworks in Sheffield’s collection.

This group portrait was painted in the late 19^th century by John Singer Sargent to mark the 21^st birthday of Mabel Frances Vickers, who is shown with her sisters Florence and Clara. The painting was commissioned by their father, Colonel Thomas Edward Vickers, director of the Sheffield family firm, Vickers, Sons & Co Ltd – at the time this one of the largest engineering steel manufacturers in the world.

John Singer Sargent was famously unkind about the prospect of making the work, writing to a friend in 1884: “I am to paint several portraits in the country and three ugly young women at Sheffield, dingy hole.”

The painting was bequeathed to Sheffield by the family in 1938 and has been hugely popular ever since, now on show in the museum’s Picturing Sheffield gallery.