Composition

The pose is sinilar to that in several drawings, notably the 1869 cartoon of a nude, known as Venus [M.0357]. It has been suggested that, although Design for a Mosaic dates from many years later, it was connected to Whistler's original designs for a mosaic for the South Kensington Museum, a commission that was never completed. On 25 Febryary 1905 the Morning Post specifically mentioned this 'most brilliant and luminous drawing' as a design 'approved and accepted' for a lunette at South Kensington Museum, and regretted that the project had come to nothing.

Frame