The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Sketch of 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown' was drawn on 9 December 1884, according to Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929). ¹

Sketch of 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown', Colby College Museum of Art

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 993). The record has been updated.

Images

Subject

Titles

Variant titles have been suggested:

• 'Sketch of 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown' (1995, MacDonald).
• 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown' (2017, Colby College Museum of Art).

Sketch of 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown' is the preferred title.

Sitter

Sketch of 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown', Colby College Museum of Art

Lady Meux and Sir Henry Meux, photograph, https://lowewoodmuseum

Valerie Susan Meux (née Langdon) (1847-1910).

Technique

Composition

Sketch of 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown', Colby College Museum of Art

Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs, photograph, GUL Whistler PH4/26

Harmony in Crimson and Brown, Private Collection

This is a drawing, possibly done from memory or from a photograph, of the painting Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs y230 in its frame. Slightly more detail of the head and hat were noted than in the earlier drawing, Harmony in Crimson and Brown m0853.

Technique

Menpes wrote that 'The pen-holder and the finger were freely used as a brush in the execution of the drawing.' ² Wash was added to back up the extensive pen shading, giving a rich and lustrous effect.

History

Provenance

• 1884: given to Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929), London art dealer, and owned by him until at least 1914.
• 2010: bought by Paula Crane Lunder (b. 1935) and Peter H. Lunder (b. 1933);
• 2010: given to Colby College Museum of Art, The Lunder Collection.

There is a long gap in the provenance.

Exhibitions

There are no records of exhibitions 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. 993) AS "Sketch of 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown' ".
• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 230, oil).

Books on Whistler

• Menpes, Mortimer, Whistler as I Knew Him, London, 1904, repr. f.p. xx.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 302.

Journals 1906-Present

• 'The Lost Lady: What became of a Whistler', The Graphic, 25 March 1911, p. 18, 'A caricature of Whistler painting simultaneously his three portraits of Lady Meux' by C. H. E. Brookfield repr.
• Sutton, Denys, ‘Whistler and Lady Meux’, Journal of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1974, pp. 36-43, repr. p. 40.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• Dowdeswell, Walter, 'The Missing Whistler of Lady Meux: The Artist's "Memorandum"', Illustrated London News, London, vol. 138, 21 January 1911, repr. p. 89.

Websites

• Colby College Museum of Art website at https://www.colby.edu/museum.