spacer Henry Cabot Lodge Henry Cabot Lodge
(1850-1924)
Statesman


Lodge began his career in Congress in 1887, armed with all the confidence that his distinguished New England ancestry, Harvard education, and wide circle of influential friends could bestow. A power in the Senate and in the Republican Party, he was noted for his scorn of the alliance between big business and corrupt politicians. Close friends with Theodore Roosevelt, he shared the President's desire to see the United States play a larger role in world affairs. Ironically, however, Lodge is best remembered for spearheading Senate blockage of American membership in the League of Nations on the grounds that its covenant threatened American sovereignty. Thus, this man who had prepared his country for international leadership ultimately came to be regarded as an isolationist.

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence to parents who had left Philadelphia to live in Europe. Like his parents, Sargent remained a devoted expatriate, although in later life, he returned to the United States frequently. Sargent, who came from the same aristocratic world as his sitter, met Lodge during his second trip to America, while visiting his friend Charles Fairchild at Nahant, a summer colony just north of Boston.


John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
Oil on canvas, 1890
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Gift of the Honorable Henry Cabot Lodge
NPG.67.58

Enlarged image





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