Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a painting by John Singer Sargent.
The painting depicts four young girls, the daughters of Edward Darley Boit, in their family's Paris apartment. It was painted in 1882 and is now exhibited in the new Art of the Americas Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The painting hangs between the two tall blue-and-white Japanese vases depicted in the work; they were donated by the heirs of the Boit family. It has been described as Arguably the most psychologically compelling painting of Sargent's career.
Though the painting's unusual composition was noted from its earliest viewings, initially its subject was interpreted simply as that of girls at play, but it has subsequently been viewed in more abstract terms, reflecting Freudian analysis and a greater interest in the ambiguities of adolescence. Edward Boit was the son-in-law of John Perkins Cushing and a friend of Sargent's.
Boit was an American cosmopolite and a minor painter. His wife and the mother of his five children was Mary Louisa Cushing, known as Isa. Their four daughters were Florence, Jane, Mary Louisa and Julia. It is not certain whether The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit was commissioned by Boit or painted at Sargent's suggestion. Set in what is thought to be the foyer of Boit's Paris apartment, its dark interior space is reminiscent of those Sargent had recently painted in Ve