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

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Song of the Graduates

Site

Sarony & Major lith., Song of the Graduates, Firth, Pond & Co., New York, 1852
Sarony & Major lith., Song of the Graduates, Firth, Pond & Co., New York, 1852

The river walk at West Point, with a panoramic view of the Hudson. This is Whistler's sole extant West Point landscape, and it is impossible to tell if it was drawn from nature or copied from a print. He studied topography under Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889).

Sitter

According to a fellow cadet at West Point, John Logan Black (1830-1902), the two figures were Edward Porter Alexander (1835-1910) and James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) . 1 The drawing was reproduced in a song sheet, the figures representing a cadet and a graduate from the United States Military Academy.

Notes:

1: J. L. Black to Whistler, 2 April 1888, GUW #00304.

Last updated: 4th March 2021 by Margaret