The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Red and black dates from 1883/1884.

Red and black, Fogg Art Museum

This work is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 934).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Red and black, Fogg Art Museum

Kate Munroe (née Lyster) (1848-1887), 'a most fascinating and clever actress,' who starred in Les Cloches de Corneville and was said to have born two children to a royal father (Further Indiscretions, 'by a Woman of No Importance', New York, 1918, p. 162).

Technique

Technique

Red and black, Fogg Art Museum

See description in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 934).

History

Provenance

• 1884: bought from Messrs Dowdeswell, London art dealers, by Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin (1841-1926).
• 1922: bought from Robert Dunthorne (1850-1925), London dealer, by Hunt Henderson (1869-1939), New Orleans;
• 1938: possibly on the New York art market;
• 1941: bought by Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943)
• 1943: bequeathed by Winthrop to the Fogg Art Museum.

It is not known exactly when Henderson sold it, or whether it passed direct from Henderson to Winthrop. See details of provenance in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 934).

Exhibitions

• 1884: probably 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 61) as 'Red and black'.

A proof of the catalogue for the Dowdeswell exhibition lists 'Red and Black - Kate', but the 'Kate' was crossed out (Rosenwald collection, Rare Books, LC).

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 934) as 'Red and black'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Probably 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 61) as 'Red and black'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon, ['Cigarette'], 'Whistles', The Topical Times, London, 24 May 1884.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon. ('An Enthusiast'), 'Exhibition', Artist, June 1884.
• Anon. ('Philistine'), 'Mr. Whistler and His Artifices', Artist and Journal of Home Culture, London, 1 July 1884.

Books on Whistler

• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 146-47.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• Whistler Pastels and Watercolors, Carroll Carstairs Gallery, New York, 1938.
• Gillerman, Dorothy W. (ed.), Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1969, p. 243.
• Myers, Kenneth John, Mr. Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2003, repr. 76, p. 94.
• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr, American Watercolors and Pastels 1875-1950 at the Fogg Art Museum, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 2006, checklist.

COLLECTION:

• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr, Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, (eds), American Paintings at Harvard, Vol. 2, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008, pp. 421-23 (cat. no. 448), repr. p. 421.

Websites

• Harvard Art Museums website at https://www.harvardartmuseums.org.