Sargent consolidated many on-the-spot studies of workers in this account of the grueling labor, conducted without modern machinery, at the historic Italian quarries. A friend recalled Sargent's devotion to the subject: "While painting at the Carrara marble quarries, [Sargent] slept for weeks in a hut so completely devoid of all ordinary comforts that his companions, far younger men, fled after a few days, unable to stand the Spartan rigors tolerated by their senior with such serene indifference."

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