Technique

La Courtisane des Étudiants, Heidelberg, photograph, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress

A summary pencil sketch, possibly taken from a sketchbook.

Conservation History

According to Annie Harriet Haden (1848-1937), Whistler gave her some 'trivial sketches', which she put in an album he had brought from Paris, 'with my name in gold, stamped outside', possibly at Christmas 1858. 1 These may have been removed and framed later, because she lent 'A frame of ten early pencil sketches' to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in 1905 (cat. no. 207), and these were unmounted and dispersed at a later date.