The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
M.1083
Flesh Colour and Rose
Date
Flesh Colour and Rose dates from 1888/1889. It was probably exhibited in 1889.
Flesh Colour and Rose, Fogg Art Museum
It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1083) as 'The Fortune Teller- a red note' [sic]. This record has been corrected and revised.
Images
Flesh Colour and Rose, Fogg Art Museum
The Fortune Teller, The Hunterian
The Little Nude Model, Reading, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
The Horoscope, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Subject
Titles
Whistler's original title is not known; suggested titles are as follows:
- 'Flesh color and Rose' (1889?, Whistler?). 1
- Possibly 'Flesh Colour and White' or 'Flesh Colour and Red' (1889, Wunderlich's). 2
- 'A Cup of Tea' (1908, E. R. & J. Pennell). 3
- 'Nude model seated, drinking tea' (1919, Knoedler's). 4
- 'Seated Nude' (nd., Fogg Art Museum).
- 'The Fortune Teller – a red note' [sic] (1995, MacDonald). 5
Flesh Colour and Rose, Fogg Art Museum
The title written on the verso, 'Flesh color and Rose' (with the American spelling of 'color') was probably added at the time of the Wunderlich show in 1889. However, no. 59 in that show was entitled 'Flesh Colour and Red' and there is no red in this pastel. It is also just possible that it was 'Flesh Colour and White' (cat. no. 58) or another pastel in the Wunderlich show. Unfortunately there is no other record of these pastels.
In this catalogue raisonné Whistler's title or the first published title is retained, wherever possible. The use of 'Flesh Color' to describe colour, as here, could imply a racist presumption that skin tone is defined as 'white' or Caucasian. In this case it presumably means the pale white and cream of the model's skin, or the pale pinkish orange of the drapery on which she is sitting. The 'rose' could be the pink touches to her face, or might indicate that the model was Rose Amy Pettigrew (1872-1958).
The blue and white porcelain, including the tea cup held by the young woman, might suggest that she was telling her fortune from the tea leaves. However, it is highly unlikely that this was, as suggested in the 1995 catalogue raisonné, The Fortune Teller – a red note. That title applies almost certainly to r.: The Fortune Teller; v.: A nude lying on a sofa m1274.
'Flesh Colour and Rose' (based on the inscription but with the spelling adjusted to English for consistency) is the preferred title.
Description
Flesh Colour and Rose, Fogg Art Museum
A drawing in vertical format, showing a young nude woman sitting in profile to left, holding a cup of tea. Her left leg is crossed over, resting on her right leg. She is sitting on some draperies spread on a bench, and to right, on the bench, is a tray with blue and white porcelain, including a tea pot.
Sitter
Given the title, it is possible this is a drawing of Rose Amy Pettigrew (1872-1958).
Technique
Composition
Flesh Colour and Rose, Fogg Art Museum
The Little Nude Model, Reading, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
The Horoscope, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The subject of a woman drinking tea, and possibly telling fortunes, links this pastel to the lithograph The Horoscope c030. The pose, however, is much closer to another lithograph, The Little Nude Model, Reading c033. The pose and treatment of the body are close, but in the lithograph, the model appears to be reading a book, while leaning on a table, with a bowl behind her, and the suggestion of a fireplace to the left. Whistler played around with the idea of fortune telling. As a subject it added to the mystery of the figure, more than if it was admitted that (as the Pennells noted) she was having a cup of tea. 6
Technique
Flesh Colour and Rose, Fogg Art Museum
Whistler used a variety of lines, from zigzag shading to broken lines on the drapes. The outline of the figure was drawn with extreme softness of touch. She is no more than a blur – a suggestion of a figure. Shadows surround her body and blur her softly drawn head. Both butterfly and table have touches of light burnt sienna, the porcelain is blue and white, presumably from Whistler's own collection, the other drapes are in salmon pink and green, the skin scumbled in two shades of very pale creamy pink, and finally, there is a green and brown ribbon in her hair. It is on a pinkish brown rag paper, with fibres and a few big bits of wood-stalk.
History
Provenance
- Date unknown: possibly owned by Alexander Arnold Hannay (1858-1927).
- 1919: bought from E. B. Patterson by Knoedler's, New York art dealers;
- 1919: sold by Knoedler's to H. Y. Sanderson, 25 April 1919 (Knoedler's #6406, 14701).
- 1943: bequeathed by Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943) to the Fogg Art Museum.
Exhibitions
- 1889: possibly “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 58) as 'Flesh Colour and White'.
The New York Times did not describe this pastel specifically, but commented on 3 March 1889 that 'the Wunderlich exhibition included 'pastels of nude young ladies who rely a good deal on the color of the paper on which they live for their existence.' 7
Whistler asked the high price of 80 guineas in 1889, but it remained unsold, and was returned after the exhibition by Wunderlich's on the SS Servia. 8
Bibliography
Catalogues Raisonnés
- MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1083) as 'Flesh Colour and Rose'.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- Possibly “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 58) as 'Flesh Colour and White'.
Newspapers 1855-1905
- Anon., 'Etchings, Drawings, Pastels', New York Times, New York, 3 March 1889, p. 5.
Journals 1855-1905
- 'The Literary Lounger', Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality, 28 October 1908, vol. 64, p. 84, repr. p. 84.
Books on Whistler
- Way, Thomas Robert, Mr Whistler's Lithographs: the Catalogue, London, 1896 (lithograph, cat. no. 29).
- Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908 , vol. 2, repr f.p. 206.
- Spink, Nesta R., Harriet K. Stratis, and Martha Tedeschi, The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, (gen. eds, Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi), 2 vols., Chicago, 1998 (cat. no. 33) repr. p. 145, fig. 331.
Books, General
- Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 428, cat. no. 455, repr.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- Gillerman, Dorothy W., Gridley McKim-Smith, and Joan R. Mertens, Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1969, p. 243.
Websites
- Fogg Art Museum website.
Notes:
1: Written on verso.
2: “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 58 and 59).
3: Pennell 1908 [more], vol. 2, repr. f.p. 206.
4: Knoedler, New York, 1919 accounts.
5: MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1083).
6: Pennell 1908 [more], vol. 2, repr. f.p. 206 as 'A Cup of Tea'.
7: Anon., 'Etchings, Drawings, Pastels', New York Times, New York, 3 March 1889, p. 5.
8: G. Dieterlen, H. Wunderlich & Co., Wunderlich to Whistler, 1 November 1889, GUW #07187. (Cat. no. 58) 'Flesh Colour and White' was also unsold, but half the price.