The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Design for a Mosaic dates from 1888/1891.

Design for a Mosaic, Private Collection

Images

Subject

Sitter

Unidentified.

Technique

Composition

Venus, Freer Gallery of Art

Design for a Mosaic, Private Collection

The pose is sinilar to that in several drawings, notably the 1869 cartoon of a nude, known as Venus m0357. It has been suggested that, although Design for a Mosaic dates from many years later, it was connected to Whistler's original designs for a mosaic for the South Kensington Museum, a commission that was never completed. On 25 Febryary 1905 the Morning Post specifically mentioned this 'most brilliant and luminous drawing' as a design 'approved and accepted' for a lunette at South Kensington Museum, and regretted that the project had come to nothing.

Frame

Design for a Mosaic, framed, Private Collection

History

Provenance

• 1888/1890: acquired by Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (b. ca 1829-d.1891);
• 1891: bequeathed to his widow, Louisa Henrietta Hutchinson (b. 1836/1837);
• 1892: possibly sold at auction, Christie's, London, 27 February 1892 (lot 30) as 'An Arrangement in Lemon and Turquoise' and bought by 'Roberts' or 'Robertson', probably Walford Graham Robertson (1867-1948);
• 1949: after Robertson's death, sold at auction, Christie's, London, 22 July 1949 (lot 135) as 'A Japanese Figure. Design for a Mosaic' and bought by Leger, London dealers.
• By 1960: owned by Mrs J. L. Neame, Jersey, C. I.
• 1965: sold at auction from the collection of the late Hon. Mrs David Fellowes, Sotheby's, London, 14 July 1965 (lot 54) and bought by a private collector, after which it passed by family descent to a private collector.

There is some difficulty in separating the history of this pastel and The Japanese Dress m1227. ¹

See further details in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1226).

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. 40) as 'Design for a Mosaic'.

Edward F. Strange described it in 1905 as 'a brilliant and luminous drawing' and regretted that, despite being 'approved and accepted', the commison was never actually completed and displayed in the Victoria and Albert Musueum. ²

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1226) as 'Design for a Mosaic'.

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. 40) as 'Design for a Mosaic'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., Daily Chronicle, London, 29 February 1892.
• Strange, Edward F., 'Whistler Memorial Exhibition', Morning Post, London, 23 February 1905, p. 9.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 150-51, repr. f.p. 150 as 'Design for Mosaic for South Kensington Museum'.

Journals 1906-Present

• Sickert, Oswald, ‘The Oil Paintings of James McNeill Whistler’, The Studio, vol. 30, October 1903, pp. 3-10, repr.p. 8 as 'Design for Mosaic'.