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

 

YMSM 544
A Corsican Child

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1901
Collection: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow
Accession Number: GLAHA 46374
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 51.8 x 31.5 cm (20 3/8 x 12 3/8")
Signature: none
Inscription: none
Frame: Whistlerian Flat, 1920s

A Corsican Child

Titles

Possible titles include:

  • 'The Ajaggio' [sic] (1902, R. B. Philip). 1
  • 'A Corsican Child' (1980, YMSM). 2

'A Corsican Child' is the preferred title.

Description

A Corsican Child, The Hunterian
A Corsican Child, The Hunterian

An unfinished head and shoulders portrait of a girl with short dark hair, facing the viewer, and wearing a black dress, against a very dark background. She has an uneven fringe, and brown eyes. The portrait is in vertical format.

Sitter

The child must have posed in Ajaccio, Corsica, but has not been identified.

Notes:

1: Ajaccio is misspelt. Quoted in diaries of C. L. Freer, [1902], Bk 12, Freer Gallery Archives.

2: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 544).

Last updated: 22nd October 2020 by Margaret