Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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M.0026
Valentine

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1850
Collection: Glasgow University Library
Accession Number: Special Collections, MS Whistler P43
Medium: watercolour, pencil, pen and black ink
Support: cream wove paper
Size: 4 1/2 x 7" (113 x 179 mm)
Signature: none
Inscription: 'I'm a novice at this, / But a sweet blue eyed Miss, / Cannot fail to inspire / A youth's fond desire, / To contribute his mite / To surprise and delight, / I bow to your Shine / Adopt me your Valentine, / Perpetual good humour!" in Anna McN. Whistler's hand
print

Valentine

Provenance

  • 1850: given on 14 February to Whistler's cousin Emma Woodbridge Palmer (1835-1912);
  • By or in 1912: passed to her sister Anna Palmer Stanton;
  • 1928: sent on 9 April to Kate R. McDiarmid née Robinson [b. 1881/1882] whose husband, James Cowling McDiarmid (1876-1944), was the great-grandson of Anne McNeill (1773–1853).
  • By 1972: in the collection of Mr and Mrs Sherman Lurie, New York.
  • 1978: bought from Hans Peter Kraus of Ursus Books, New York, by the University of Glasgow.

Note: despite the family connections, this is not part of the Birnie Philip or Revillon collections. For further details see MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more].

Last updated: 12th December 2018 by Margaret