The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
M.1240
Butterfly
Date
Butterfly was drawn for publication in Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890.
Butterfly, Art Institute of Chicago
It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1240).
Images
Butterfly, Art Institute of Chicago
Subject
Description
Butterfly, Art Institute of Chicago
A dancing butterfly with a barbed tail, facing to right. It was slightly rubbed and altered, before being sent for reproduction in Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890.
Technique
Composition
Butterfly, Art Institute of Chicago
This is a design for Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890.
The tiny butterfly appears as a marginal reflection in 'Art & Art Critics', on p. 17; on p. 242, the same butterfly, enlarged, signs 'Panic', a letter to Truth, 16 January 1890.
History
Provenance
- 1890: probably sent by Whistler to William Heinemann (1863-1920), London publisher.
- 1920: sold by Albert Louis Roullier (1858-1920), Chicago art dealer, to Walter Stanton Brewster (1872-1954), Chicago;
- 1933: given to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Exhibitions
It was not, as far as is known, exhibited 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. 1240) as 'Butterfly'.
Authored by Whistler
- Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890, repr. pp. 17, 242.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- Original Drawings by Old and Modern Masters, Albert Roullier Art Galleries, Chicago, 1921 (cat. no. 47).
- An Exhibition of Portraits of Whistler and some Original Drawings by Whistler, Loaned by Walter S. Brewster, Arts Club, Chicago, 1923 (cat. no. 110).
Websites
- Art Institute of Chicago website at https://www.artic.edu.
- Clarke, Jay A., and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, website (cat. no. 29).