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

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M.0193
'Nulla dies sine linea': (a) Monk writing; (b) An old man in a nightcap reading; (c) Whistler changing clothes with a 'Pleb'

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1855
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Accession Number: 1970.121.85-87
Medium: pencil, pen, black and brown ink
Support: off-white wove paper, journal
Size: 8 5/16" x 11 3/8" (210 x 290 mm)
Signature: none
Inscription: (a) ' "Nulla dies sine linea".' ; (b) [journal entries:] '... a spluttering, rattling, unsteady chuckle at a delightful bit of rascallity is not to be "held in" by a pair of loosened, rickety, worn out jaws!- ...' ; (c) '...my "grey changed for blue" or rather for a buff coloured shanghai, which had been brought by a newly arrived "Pleb", of fashionable pretensions, and in return for which I made him happy with my "shell jacket"... '

'Nulla dies sine linea': (a) Monk writing; (b) An old man in a nightcap reading; (c) Whistler changing clothes with a 'Pleb'

Catalogues Raisonnés

  • MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 193) as " 'Nulla dies sine linea': (a) Monk writing; (b) An old man in a nightcap reading; (c) Whistler changing clothes with a 'Pleb' ".

Journals 1906-Present

  • Pressly, Nancy D., 'Whistler in America: An Album of Early Drawings', Metropolitan Museum Journal, New York, vol. 5, 1972, pp. 125-54.

Websites

  • Metropolitan Museum of Art website, (a) as 'Half-length Figure in a Monk's Cowl (Possibly a Self-portrait)' (b) as 'Two Sketches of Old Man with Books'; (c) as 'Three Men'.

Last updated: 14th March 2021 by Margaret