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

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YMSM 184
Portrait Sketch of a Lady

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1876/1879
Collection: Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Accession Number: F1905.328
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 67.5 x 50.1 cm (26 1/2 x 19 3/4")
Signature: none
Inscription: none
Frame: Grau-style, possibly American

Portrait Sketch of a Lady

Technique

Portrait Sketch of a Lady, Freer Gallery of Art
Portrait Sketch of a Lady, Freer Gallery of Art

It is painted on fine weave canvas. It was painted very thinly, with areas of bare canvas at lower right, and extensive dripping of the dark paint from her hair and dress.

Conservation History

It was relined and resurfaced in 1923, resurfaced again in 1947, and cleaned and surfaced in 1951, according to Freer Gallery of Art files.

Frame

Portrait Sketch of a Lady, Freer Gallery of Art
Portrait Sketch of a Lady, Freer Gallery of Art

Stubbs listed a frame for this portrait (05.329) but this has since been given to Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen [YMSM 060]. It is now in a Grau-style frame. 1

Notes:

1: Stubbs 1948 [more] , p. 15 (05.328-29). Dr Sarah L. Parkerson Day, Report on frames, 2017; see also Horowitz 1979 [more] ; and Parkerson 2007 [more] .

Last updated: 25th November 2020 by Margaret