Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose | TateShots

John Singer Sargent painted Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose between 1885 and 1886. The inspiration for the painting came during a boating expedition Sargent took on the Thames at Pangbourne in September 1885, with the American artist Edwin Austin Abbey, during which he saw Chinese lanterns hanging among trees and lilies. Sargent began the picture while staying at the home of the painter F.D. Millet at Broadway, Worcestershire, shortly after his move to Britain from Paris. At first he used the Millets’s five-ye