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

 

YMSM 436
The Daughter of the Concierge

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1894/1895
Collection: Worcester Art Museum, MA
Accession Number: 1940.55
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 51.4 x 35.6 cm (20 1/4 x 14")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: not original

The Daughter of the Concierge

The Daughter of the Concierge probably dates from 1894 or 1895. 1

The Daughter of the Concierge, Worcester Art Museum
The Daughter of the Concierge, Worcester Art Museum

According to dealers' records, it was in Glasgow in 1894. 2 The technique and butterfly signature fits with this date.

The painter Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938) thought he remembered seeing a picture, possibly this, being painted in London by Whistler in the studio of Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) in 1895. 3

C. H. Sawyer commented :

'The Daughter of the Concierge is strongly reminiscent of [The Master Smith of Lyme Regis [YMSM 450]] and was probably painted in the early nineties. Its extremely gentle gradations of tone make it seem to the modern eye almost monochromatic and suggest the complete withdrawal of the artist into the domain of his own limited aesthetic.' 4

Notes:

1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 436).

2: Information from A. McN. Reid, 1963, GU WPP.

3: T. W. Dewing to W. Macbeth, 17 February 1919, photocopy, GU WPP.

4: Sawyer 1941 [more] , at p. 47. The Master Smith was painted in 1895.

Last updated: 25th November 2020 by Margaret