The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

r.: Portrait of the Artist; v.: Nude date from before 1879.

r.: Portrait of the Artist, Freer Gallery of Art

v.: Nude, Freer Gallery of Art

The drawings are fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 683).

Images

Subject

Sitter

r.: Portrait of the Artist, Freer Gallery of Art

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).

Technique

Technique

r.: Portrait of the Artist, Freer Gallery of Art

In 1893 Whistler wrote to T. R. Way,

'About the drawing I dont remember giving it to your Father - but if I did, it surely must have been by myself! - I think he will know that I am scarcely in the habit of collecting the sketches of my contemporaries!!!! - Besides I know that at one time I always made a drawing before going to bed! - of myself I mean - though I finally destroyed most of them -

I hope his one is not so very bad - though doubtless if I had it here I would pop it in the fire - where I daresay it ought to have gone with the rest! -

Perhaps one of these evenings I shall do another! -'

¹

History

Provenance

• Before 1879: given by Whistler to Thomas Way (1837-1915), London;
• 1905: sold in June by his son, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 682).

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. 203, repr.) as 'Portrait of the Artist'.

Due to the terms of Freer's will, the drawing can not be lent to another venue.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 683) as 'r.: Portrait of the Artist; v.: Nude'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 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. 203, repr.) as 'Portrait of the Artist'.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 109, repr. f.p. 136 as 'Portrait of Whistler.
• Way and Dennis 1903, repr. f.p.8 as 'Portrait Study of the Artist, by Himself'.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, p. 26.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 237, pl. 204.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1905.148a-b as 'Portrait of Artist'.