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

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M.1240
Butterfly

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1890
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number: 33.284
Medium: graphite pencil
Support: off-white card
Size: 3 3/16 x 6 1/8" (81 x 156 mm)
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: '33.284' and 'OCT' in unknown hands; 'WSB' (collector's mark of Walter Stanton Brewster)

Butterfly

Composition

Butterfly, Art Institute of Chicago
Butterfly, Art Institute of Chicago

This is a design for Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890.

The tiny butterfly appears as a marginal reflection in 'Art & Art Critics', on p. 17; on p. 242, the same butterfly, enlarged, signs 'Panic', a letter to Truth, 16 January 1890.

Last updated: 4th March 2021 by Margaret