The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Venus and Cupid dates from 1890/1894.

Venus and Cupid, Freer Gallery of Art

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1296).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Venus and Cupid, Freer Gallery of Art

Probably Rose Amy Pettigrew (1872-1958) and her niece.

Technique

Frame

Venus and Cupid, Freer Gallery of Art

History

Provenance

• Date unknown: acquired by Beatrice Winans (Comtesse de Béarn) (1884-1907), St Petersburg and, later, 123 rue St Dominique, Paris;
• 1913: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 9 May 1913 (lot 184), and bought by Wallis, London dealer;
• 1913: sold by David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) for the Goupil Gallery to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, in June 1913;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Beatrice Winans (Comtesse de Béarn) (1884-1907) was a Revillon and thus related to the artist. It is quite possible that the picture came to her by family descent, but there is no record of it before 1897.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1296).

Exhibitions

• 1897: Probably English and German Watercolours, Schtiglitz School, Saint Petersburg, 1897 (cat. no. 126) as 'Woman with a child'.

• 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. 41) as 'Draped Figure and Cupid'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 92).

By the terms of Freer's will, this work cannot be lent to another venue.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1296) as 'Venus and Cupid'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Probably English and German Watercolours, Schtiglitz School, Saint Petersburg, 1897 (cat. no. 126) as 'Woman with a child'.
• 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. 41) as 'Draped Figure and Cupid'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 92).

Books, General

• Diaghilev, S. P., 'Vistavka angliiskikh I nemetskikh akvarelistov' [Exhibition of English and German Watercolourists], in Sergei Diagilev, I russkoye iskusstvo ... [Sergei Diagilev and Russian Art ...], 2 vols., Moscow, 1982, vol. 1, p. 63.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 206, pl. 138.
• Vyazova, Ekaterina, ' "Whistlerism" in Russia at the Turn of the 19th Century', in Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 86-117, at pp. 88-89.

SALE:

• Christie's, London, 9 May 1913 (lot 184).

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1913.48a-c, as 'Woman with a Child (Nude Figure and Cupid)'.