The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Newspaper boy: 'Terrible disaster! Loss of the Arctic!!' dates from on or shortly after 11 October 1854. The New York Herald, on 11 October 1854, announced the sinking of the SS Arctic, with the loss of 320 lives, thirteen days earlier.

Newspaper boy: 'Terrible disaster! Loss of the Arctic!!', Metropolitan Museum of Art

For more information on this work, see MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 183).

Images

Subject

Comments

Newspaper boy: 'Terrible disaster! Loss of the Arctic!!', Metropolitan Museum of Art

It is not clear if this is an example of very dark humour or is meant to be a geographical joke.

Technique

Technique

Newspaper boy: 'Terrible disaster! Loss of the Arctic!!', Metropolitan Museum of Art

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 183).

Conservation History

This was among numerous drawings given to the Winans family and stuck into an album.

History

Provenance

• 1853/1854: given to Thomas de Kay Winans (1820-1878) and family;
• 1878-1970: passed by family descent to his daughter Celeste Marguerite Winans (Mrs G. M. Hutton) (1855-1925), her daughter Lucette Marguerite Hutton, Mrs H. A. Prichard (1885-1957), and grand-daughters, Margaret Celeste Prichard, Mrs T. A. Buell (1908-1970), Helen Lucette Prichard, Mrs J. M. King (1913-2005), and Sybil Agnes Prichard, Mrs E. G. Walk (1915-2009);
• 1970: given by Margaret C. Buell, Helen L. King, and Sybil A. Walk to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Exhibitions

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. 183) as "Newspaper boy: 'Terrible disaster! Loss of the Arctic!!' "

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 as 'Terrible Disaster! Loss of the Arctic! '.