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

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M.1341
Cupid letting a bird out of a cage

Artist: James McNeill Whistler or Beatrice Whistler
Date: 1892
Collection: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow
Accession Number: GLAHA 46170
Medium: pencil
Support: pale beige laid paper
Size: 7 1/16 x 5 11/16-5 7/8 (180 x 144-150 mm)
Signature: none
Inscription: 'Recreations Postales' in hand of S. Mallarmé

Cupid letting a bird out of a cage

Cupid letting a bird out of a cage probably dates from June 1892. It is a design for a stamp for the proposed publication of quatrains called 'Récréations Postales' by Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898). Whistler approached both William Heinemann (1863-1920) and Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. on Mallarmé's behalf but the project fell through. He wrote to Heinemann, 'Think what a pretty book - say for the season - Christmas or autumn whenever it is - With an arrangement to recall the Envelope! - and think what pretty things might be made out of the stamps!' 1

Cupid letting a bird out of a cage, The Hunterian
Cupid letting a bird out of a cage, The Hunterian

It was catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1341).

Notes:

1: Whistler to W. Heinemann, [22 June 1892], GUW #08025. A selection was published in The Chap Book, Chicago, 5 December 1894, vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 111-15 as 'Les Loisirs de la Poste' and, after Mallarmé's death, in Vers de Circonstance (Paris, 1920).

Last updated: 8th December 2020 by Margaret