The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

r.: Female figure, seated; v.: Screen date from 1870/1873 but may have been signed in 1874.

r.: Female figure, seated, Freer Gallery of Art

v.: Screen, Freer Gallery of Art

They are fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 390).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Not identified.

Technique

Composition

v.: Screen, Freer Gallery of Art

v.: Screen, Freer Gallery of Art

The design on the verso shows three canvas or other woven rectangles attached at the edges to a slender wooden (bamboo?) frame. It is possible that this was a scheme for decoration in Whistler's own house, such as the screen seen in a photograph of Whistler's house in Lindsey Row, reproduced above. However, it could have been a design for William Cleverly Alexander (1840-1916) (see, for instance, Designs for the dining-room at Aubrey House: (a) chairs and door, plates on wall; (b) vase in arched recess m0488) or a later design for furniture, as seen in Whistler's Sketchbook m1001.

Technique

r.: Female figure, seated, Freer Gallery of Art

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 390).

History

Provenance

• Before 1904: owned by James Staats Forbes (1823-1904);
• 1904-1905: Executors of James Staats Forbes;
• 1905: bought through William Stephen Marchant (1868-1925), London art dealer, by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Exhibitions

• 1903-1904: possibly Watercolours, Pastels, Drawings in Black and White, Sculptures and Bronzes By British and Foreign Artists Including A Selection of Works by H. B. Brabazon, and A Group of Works by the late James McNeill Whistler, W. Marchant & Co., Goupil Gallery, London, 1903, (cat. no. 189) and 1904 (cat. no. 1).
• 1905: probably Pictures given to the City of Dublin to form the Nucleus of a Gallery of Modern Art, National Museum, Dublin, 1905b(cat. no. 38) as 'Female Figure Seated'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 390) as 'r.: Female figure, seated; v.: Screen'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Possibly Watercolours, Pastels, Drawings in Black and White, Sculptures and Bronzes By British and Foreign Artists Including A Selection of Works by H. B. Brabazon, and A Group of Works by the late James McNeill Whistler, W. Marchant & Co., Goupil Gallery, London, 1903 (cat. no. 189) and 1904 (cat. no. 1).
• Probably Pictures given to the City of Dublin to form the Nucleus of a Gallery of Modern Art, National Museum, Dublin, 1905 (cat. no. 38) as 'Female Figure Seated'.
• 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. unknown).

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The International Society's Whistler Exhibition', The Studio, vol. 34, April 1905, pp. 223-35, repr. p. 233.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p.238, pl. 206.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1905.135a-c.