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

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m0168a
The assassination of the Duke of Buckingham

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1853
Collection: Thomas Colville Fine Art
Accession Number: none
Medium: pencil, watercolour
Support: paper
Size: 8 3/4 x 5 3/4" (mm)
Signature: r.: 'J Whistler -'
Inscription: r.: 'Club Sketch', by Whistler; v.: on labels, in an unknown hand, 'Whistler/ Sketch Club/ West Point/ painted by Whistler during/ his year at West Point/ Academy' and, '& given to his friend/ & classmate/ Alex. S. Webb -' the latter written on an Arthur H. Hahlo & Co. label.

The assassination of the Duke of Buckingham

Description

The assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, Thomas Colbille Fine Art
The assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, Thomas Colbille Fine Art

It shows a cloaked man with a letter or document and another, more richly dressed, at left, with a dagger in his chest, and his sword leaning on the wall to left. The setting is an interior, lit by candlelight, with bottles and glasses on the table. A red curtain is looped up at upper right.

Sitter

This probably represents the assassination of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628) by the English soldier, John Felton (ca 1595-1628) in the Greyhound Pub at Portsmouth on 23 August 1628.

Whistler illustrated scenes from the novels of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870). Loomis Lyman Langdon (1830-1910) recorded that 'The Three Guardsmen' (presumably meaning The Three Musketeers) as a favourite of Whistler. 1

Notes:

1: Pennell 1908 [more] , vol. 2, pp. 308, 311-12.

Last updated: 6th February 2019 by Margaret