Figures in a Landscape probably dates from 1853 or 1854. 1

Loomis Lyman Langdon (1830-1910) told the Pennells that when he was at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in the class above Whistler,

'Whistler lived in the barracks near me ... I stood at the head of my class in drawing and painting and he at the head of his class in the same branches ... we painted a large picture together; he the figures and I the landscape part. It was for my class-mate, Cadet Wright. Poor Wright committed suicide ... two years after graduating.' 2

Whistler studied in West Point from June 1851 to June 1854 but failed to graduate; L. L. Langdon graduated in 1854.