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

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M.1564
A club on a cushion

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1899
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number: 1933.286
Medium: graphite pencil, pen, black ink and white opaque paint
Support: cream wove card
Size: 4 11/16 x 6 1/4" (119 x 159 mm)
Signature: none
Inscription: r.: 'size across/ from tassel to tassel -'; collector's mark of 'WSB' (Walter Stanton Brewster); v.: in unknown hands '33.286 / 12 / a44123'
print

A club on a cushion

Composition

A club on a cushion, Art Institute of Chicago
A club on a cushion, Art Institute of Chicago
A club on a cushion in Eden versus Whistler: The Baronet and the Butterfly, p. xxiii, Glasgow University Library
A club on a cushion in Eden versus Whistler: The Baronet and the Butterfly, p. xxiii, Glasgow University Library

This was selected for publication in James McNeill Whistler, Eden versus Whistler: The Baronet and the Butterfly. A Valentine with a Verdict, Paris: Louis-Henry May, 1899. The rejected version is Club on a cushion [M.1563].

Technique

It is a very neat drawing in pen and ink. Corrections were made in white paint, which is going grey around the cushion.

See further details in Clarke, Jay A., and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, website.

Conservation History

It has rough edges, with pin holes at the corners.

Last updated: 19th March 2021 by Margaret