The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Mr Pecksniff, blown out (Pelouze's Album, p. 62) dates from between 1851 and 1853.

Mr Pecksniff, blown out , Pelouze's Album, p. 62, Colby College Museum of Art

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 88). The history of this work has been updated.

Images

Subject

Description

Mr Pecksniff, blown out , Pelouze's Album, p. 62, Colby College Museum of Art

This drawing illustrates a scene in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). It was first published 1843-1844, and was borrowed by Whistler from the West Point Library in 1852, in the Philadelphia edition of 1850-1851. Pecksniff was the hero's hypocritical cousin, an architect, shown here as drunk and falling down some steps.

Technique

Conservation History

This is one of several sketches drawn by Whistler in an album for a fellow West Point cadet, Louis Henry Pelouse (1831-1878).

History

Provenance

• 1851/1853: drawn for Louis Henry Pelouse (1831-1878);
• 1878-after 1995: passed by family descent to his wife, Ellen Letitia Doolittle Pelouze (1836-1916), his son, Louis Henri Pelouze (1863-1939), and his great-nephew.
• 2013: given by Paula Crane Lunder (b. 1935) and Peter H. Lunder (b. 1933) to Colby College Museum of Art, Maine.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 88).

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 88) as 'Mr Pecksniff, blown out (Pelouze's Album, p. 62)'.

Websites

• Colby College Museum of Art website at https://www.colby.edu/museum.