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

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r.: A Japanese Woman; v.: Girl with parasol

Provenance

  • By 1904: owned by the Hon. John Prince Elton (1865-1948) ;
  • 1948: bequeathed to his wife, Elizabeth Deborah Steele Elton (1875-1962) , Waterbury, CT;
  • 1962: bequeathed to her daughter, Charlotte (Mrs R. M. Cross, 1910-1998);
  • 1987: sold to Coe Kerr, New York art dealers;
  • 1989: sold to Thomas Colville (n/a) Fine Arts, New York;
  • By 1995: sold to a private collector;
  • After 2000: bought by Paula Crane Lunder (b. 1935) and Peter H. Lunder (b. 1933) ;
  • 2013: given to Colby College Museum of Art, The Lunder Collection.

The Colby website comments:

'Whistler created this pastel—the first work by the artist to enter the Lunder Collection—as part of an uncompleted mosaic commission for the South Kensington Museum. A second pastel, also for the unrealized commission, shows a Japanese woman painting a fan. The artist in this image, holding a brush in her right hand, has paused in her work, allowing the parasol to gracefully frame her soft features.' 1

Notes:

1: Colby College Museum of Art Website.

Last updated: 24th February 2021 by Margaret