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

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M.1560
Butterfly and tricolour flag

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1899
Collection: Glasgow University Library
Accession Number: MS Whistler 292 ff. 45-6
Medium: pencil, pen and black ink
Support: cream wove paper, bound into volume of 'Eden versus Whistler: The Baronet and the Butterfly'
Size: 6 3/16 x 7 5/16" (157 x 202 mm)
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: r.: ' "Argument"/ Reduced Butterfly/ about this size across- or little/ smaller' and in unknown hands 'top// 3 3/4 to 1 3/4 // 4 // Break up/ this wing a little/ through the/ centre thus'; v.: '4 inch' four times, and '64946' in unknown hand

Butterfly and tricolour flag

Provenance

  • 1921: bought from W. Brown, 17 Filmer Road, Fulham, London, by Pickford Robert Waller (1849-1930) .
  • Date unknown: bought from Sherman Lurie, New York, by Hans Peter Kraus (1907-1988), New York bookseller;
  • 1978: bought from H. P. Kraus by the University of Glasgow.

The early provenance is unknown.

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Last updated: 9th April 2019 by Margaret