The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Flag for a lithograph exhibition at the Fine Art Society was drawn in a letter to from Whistler, then in Lyme Regis, to Marcus Bourne Huish (1843-1904) of The Fine Art Society in London, on 24 November 1895. ¹

Flag for a lithograph exhibition at the Fine Art Society, Glasgow University Library

It was catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1445).

Images

Subject

Description

Flag for a lithograph exhibition at the Fine Art Society, Glasgow University Library

A long pennant with a butterfly on a dark ground in a square cartouche.

Technique

Composition

Flag for a lithograph exhibition at the Fine Art Society, Glasgow University Library

This was a design for a pennant to hang outside Whistler's exhibition, A Collection of Lithographs by James McNeill Whistler, Fine Art Society, London, 1895. Whistler's letter contained detailed instructions :

'Flag pale Yellow - cool in tone -

Square - properly let in, pale Brown - like the covers of my old Catalogues -

Butterfly - Black.

Trefoil. & small dot, the pale Yellow of the flag again -

Pretty isn't it?' ²

Conservation History

Another drawing of the flag, on the verso, had been partly scraped out, and concealed by sticking over it a sheet of laid off-white paper, which has since been partly removed. The card has bent and cracked vertically. The ink appears grey where it was blotted, in the background to the butterfly.

History

Provenance

• 1895: sent to Marcus Bourne Huish (1843-1904), of the Fine Art Society, London.
• 1921: sold by James Tregaskis (1850-1926), London book and art dealer (December 1921, cat. no. 413 iii).
• Date unknown: acquired by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), London;
• 1955: given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow.

Exhibitions

It was not 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. 1445) as 'Flag for a lithograph exhibition at the Fine Art Society'.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 180, 187 (cat. no. 115), repr. p. 180.

Websites

• The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855-1903, edited by Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp; including The Correspondence of Anna McNeill Whistler, 1855-1880, edited by Georgia Toutziari. Online edition, University of Glasgow, 2003-2004, GUW #02974.