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

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M.1562
r.: Butterfly 'Encountered'; v.: Butterfly

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1899
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number: 1933.288
Medium: r.: pen and black ink over pencil; v.: pencil
Support: cream wove card
Size: 6 1/8 x 4 3/4" (155 x 121 mm)
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: r.: 'top./ "Encountered" ' and sideways 'size from highest point of tail to bottom of lowest foot.' Collector's mark of 'WSB' ( Walter Stanton Brewster); v.: in unknown hands '33.285/oc 4123'

r.: Butterfly 'Encountered'; v.: Butterfly

Composition

r.: Butterfly 'Encountered', Art Institute of Chicago
r.: Butterfly 'Encountered', Art Institute of Chicago

This was drawn for publication in Whistler 1899 (F)[more] . The butterfly was inexpertly copied for reproduction.

Technique

The pencil work is a bit smudged to left, and there are some ink stains at the lower left and right corners. It was drawn with separate, weak, lines of shading. The butterfly wings were originally smaller, the two antennae closer together and the right foot possibly further to the left. In addition, the tail had a much wider sweep to the right. The butterfly on the verso is the opposite way up to that on the recto.

See further details in Clarke, Jay A., and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, website.

Conservation History

It is on card, a little darkened at the edges, with rough edges on three sides (straight at the bottom). It has pinholes, at the corners left and bottom right, two above left corner and one above centre.

Last updated: 11th December 2020 by Margaret