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

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YMSM 450
The Master Smith of Lyme Regis

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1895/1896
Collection: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Accession Number: 96.951
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 51.43 x 31.11 cm (20 1/4 x 12 1/4")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: Grau-style, 1896 [17.8 cm]

The Master Smith of Lyme Regis

Technique

The Master Smith of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Master Smith of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

The portrait is thinly painted over a red ground. It is painted carefully, to a high finish unusual in Whistler's work. Some areas have been rubbed down, including areas of the face, as part of the painting process.

Pennell reported Whistler as saying that in this portrait and The Master Smith of Lyme Regis [YMSM 450] 'he had really solved the problem of carrying on his work as he wished to until it was finished.' 1

Frame

1896: the frame was probably made at the time the picture was sold to Wunderlich's.

The Master Smith of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Master Smith of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

The frame is in the style of Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892). 2

Notes:

1: Pennell 1908 [more] , vol. 2, p. 166.

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

Last updated: 4th June 2021 by Margaret