John Singer Sargent’s American parents were traveling in Florence when he was born, in 1856. Sargent later traveled the world on his own, from Venice to Corfu and Capri, to the Middle East, then Montana, Maine, and Florida. Along the way he became the foremost portrait painter of his generation. Endowing society figures with an otherworldly grace, Sargent helped define the elevated elegance of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. This exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay focuses on his early years in Paris, from 1874—when he was a student of 18—to the mid–1880s. It was an extraordinary decade that culminated in his 1884 painting Madame X, a striking portrait of Virginie Gautreau in a black gown of deep décolletage and jeweled straps. This exhibition was designed in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it opened last spring. Now it is Paris’s turn. —Elena Clavarino