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

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YMSM 382
Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1893
Collection: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Accession Number: 1943.178
Medium: oil
Support: wood
Size: 130 x 215 mm (5 1/8 x 8 1/2")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: Grau-style, American, M. Grieve, 1930/1940s

Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec

Technique

Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, Fogg Art Museum
Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, Fogg Art Museum

The panel is primed in grey. It is thinly painted. Sky, beach and butterfly are predominantly grey, setting off the soft, fluid brush-work on the rich greenish-blue coloured sea. The dainty pink figures are painted with minute brushstrokes.

Conservation History

Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, photograph, 1980
Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, photograph, 1980

It was varnished by Stephen Richards (1844-1900) in 1895. 1

Frame

Grau-style frame, made in America by M. Grieve, dating from the 1930s or 1940s. 2

Notes:

1: Whistler to Richards, [16 October 1895], GUW #10721.

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

Last updated: 22nd October 2020 by Margaret