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

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YMSM 338
Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1893/1894
Collection: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Accession Number: 1943.166
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 86.4 x 62.2 cm (34 x 24 1/2")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: Cove frame, with reeded edge and compo leaves, American, 1910s

Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert

Technique

Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert, Fogg Art Museum
Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert, Fogg Art Museum

It is painted thinly, on fine canvas, which is visible in places, such as around the chair-frame. Mrs Sickert's skirt was originally about an inch higher on the left, as was the cloak on the right. The seat of the sofa may have been higher, and there are signs of some alterations below the butterfly. Some areas have been rubbed down as part of the painting process, and her face and features are rather blurred and soft-edged.

Conservation History

Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert, photograph, 1980
Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert, photograph, 1980

The painting has been relined at some time.

Frame

Cove frame, with reeded edge and compo (composition) leaves, made in America, probably 1910/1920. 1

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, photograph, GUL Whistler PH6/25
Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, photograph, GUL Whistler PH6/25

It appears in its frame in a photograph of the 1904 Boston Memorial Exhibition.

Notes:

1: Dr S. L. Parkerson Day, Report on frames, 2017; see also Parkerson 2007 [more] .

Last updated: 12th November 2020 by Margaret