The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Sailor seated probably dates from 1858 and was given to Whistler's niece Annie Harriet Haden (1848-1937)

Sailor seated, photograph, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 264).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Sailor seated, photograph, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress

Probably a German sailor on the riverboat on which Whistler travelled up the Rhine.

Technique

Conservation History

The sheet was probably taken from a sketchbook.

Sailor seated, photograph, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress

According to Annie Harriet Haden (1848-1937), Whistler gave her some 'trivial sketches', which she put in an album he had brought from Paris, 'with my name in gold, stamped outside', possibly at Christmas 1858. ¹ These may have been removed and framed later, because she lent 'A frame of ten early pencil sketches' to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in 1905 (cat. no. 207), and these were unmounted and dispersed at a later date.

History

Provenance

• 1857/1858: given to Annie Harriet Haden (1848-1937);
• After 1905: several drawings owned by Annie Haden (Mrs Thynne), probably including this, were dispersed at an unknown date.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 207) as 'A frame of ten early pencil sketches.'

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 264) as 'Sailor seated'.