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

 

YMSM 506
Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1898/1899
Collection: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow
Accession Number: GLAHA 46364
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 56.4 x 43.3 cm (22 1/4 x 17")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: oval cassetta moulding

Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit

Composition

Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, The Hunterian
Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, The Hunterian
Harmony in Rose and Green: Carmen, The Hunterian
Harmony in Rose and Green: Carmen, The Hunterian

Whistler painted several portraits of Carmen Rossi. She is here wearing the same dress as in Harmony in Rose and Green: Carmen [YMSM 507]. Whistler always thought of her as young and poor as when he had first known her, whereas Annulet Andrews (1864-1944) described her around 1900 as a sturdy woman of twelve stone aged about forty. 1

Technique

Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, The Hunterian
Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, The Hunterian

There are signs of alterations above her arm, on the right. Her hands are unfinished and of a curious shape.

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, The Hunterian
Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, The Hunterian
Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, frame detail
Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit, frame detail

Oval frame with cassetta moulding. 2 The frame bears the stamp of the Maison Chapuis, Paris. It was probably one of two frames being made for Whistler by Claude Chapuis (1829-1908) in October 1898. 3

Notes:

1: Andrews 1904 [more] , at pp. 319-20.

2: Dr S. L. Parkerson Day, Report on frames, 2017. See also Parkerson 2007 [more] .

3: Whistler to R. Birnie Philip, [28 October 1898], GUW #04743.

Last updated: 21st November 2020 by Margaret