The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Venus dates from 1869. It was the first of Whistler's works to be both dated and signed with his monogram, the butterfly, which was evolved from his initials 'JW'.

Venus, Freer Gallery of Art

Venus, photograph altered by Whistler, GUL Whistler PH4/10

About 1869 Whistler wrote to his patron Thomas Winans, `I send you a small photograph of the "cartoon" for one of the pictures I am engaged upon. The figure itself is about small life size and will when painted be clad in thin transparent drapery, a lot of flowers and very light bright colour go to make up the picture.' ¹

It has been assumed that the Winans letter dates from 1869, and that because there is a photograph of this drawing, it has to be the cartoon mentioned to Winans. Its state of finish, which exceeds the standard necessary for transferring it to canvas, suggests the drawing was to be exhibited. There could have been several reasons for it being photographed: to send to Winans or other patrons as an example of his work, to try out alterations without further damage to the drawing, or to keep as a record of a work which he expected to sell.

It has been suggested that this cartoon was prepared for Alan Summerly Cole (1846-1934) in 1872 (see Gold Girl m0461), but this is not necessarily true: it seems unlike Whistler to leave the 1869 date on a cartoon being prepared in 1873.

The drawing is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 357).

Images

Subject

Description

Venus, Freer Gallery of Art

A nude woman stands facing the viewer, her right arm crossing her torso to beyond her left shoulder, holding a robe that cascades down below her knee. She stands on her left leg, the right leg raised in front, her toes just touching the ground, as if she is turning. Her left arm is concealed by the robe. Her hair is bound up on the top of her head, with a ribbon around it. There is a jar on a small shelf behind her, and fans on the wall.

Sitter

Not identified.

Technique

Composition

Venus, Freer Gallery of Art

A small oil sketch that relates to the same design, the pose differing in minor details, is known as Tanagra y092

Venus, photograph altered by Whistler, GUL Whistler PH4/10

An old photograph of the cartoon, drawn on with sharp pencil or incised lines to the left of her back, making her lean more to the left, is in the University of Glasgow. However, the suggested alteration was not acted upon.

The head was originally tilted more to the right. The face is very soft and was drawn in delicately, not rubbed, to achieve soft shading. This must have been done to make an effect as a drawing (the shading could not be reproduced in the pouncing and was so much wasted effort). The shading, carefully drawn, uses soft diagonal curving lines suggesting the curves of body and face.

Technique

Venus, Freer Gallery of Art

The cartoon was pounced for transfer to a canvas of the same size but no painting has survived and it may be that none was completed. Not all lines have been pricked: the bottom horizontal line was never pricked, and this could suggest it was drawn in later: the third line up was very sparsely pounced and would have been difficult to follow in the transferring process. Similarly the darkest, perhaps the definitive, line on her left leg was not pricked, although there are lines on either side of the upper leg and inside the lower leg that were. The curves of her stomach and crotch were pounced with great care, as were the curves, carefully drawn in perspective, of the vase. A diagonal line from lower right to upper right just to left of the vase was pricked, but not the swirl of drapery to left of it.

The fan she holds was pricked, as was another of the same size below and to the right. One fan, that goes off the edge at right, had a second top line drawn and pricked. The fans on the left were so heavily pounced that the paper has cracked along the lines.

Conservation History

Small fibres and fragments of stalk are visible in the paper, but the surface is almost shiny, with a horizontal grain. It is strong paper and despite numerous alterations and rubbing out, the fibres remain surprisingly undisturbed.

The cartoon was removed from an old backing in 1976, because it had cracked at the edges- and there has been paper loss all along the edge. It was washed and as a result the paper became lighter (it now has an orangey tone) but some of the white chalk was lost in the process. The original balance of black and white chalk can be seen in the original photograph of Venus m0357.

History

Provenance

• 1903: probably 'Study of a Nude' owned by Dugald M'Corkindale (d. 1903), Ironmaster, of Carfin Hall, Lanarkshire, sold at auction, Morrison, Dick & McCulloch, Glasgow, 6-7 November 1903 (lot 109);
• 1904: bought from Alexander Reid (1854-1928), La Société des Beaux-Arts, Glasgow, by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, on 24 May 1904 for £150 (Journal Voucher No. 1, 21 July 1904, FGA);
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

The early history of the drawing is not known.

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. 357) as 'Venus'.
• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (oil, cat. no. 92).

Books on Whistler

• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 100, fig. 2.18, 61.4.
• Spencer, Robin, The Aesthetic Movement, London and New York, 1972, p. 39.

Books, General

• Staley, Allen, The New Painting of the 1860s, London and New Haven, 2011, p. 178, fig. 159.
• Williams, Mary Frances, Catalogue of the Collection of American Art at Randolph-Macon Woman's College: A Selection of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints, Charlottesville, 1977, p. 169.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 244, pl. 216.

EXHIBITION:

• Robertson, Pamela, Beauty and the Butterfly: Whistler's Depictions of Women, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, 2003, p. 19, fig. 6 (not exhibited).
• Ayako Ono, ホイッスラー展. James McNeill Whistler Retrospective, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyōto, 2014, and Yokohama Museum of Art, 2014–2015, p. 9, fig. 2 (not exhibited).

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.66a-b.