The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 002
Figures in a Landscape
Date
Figures in a Landscape probably dates from 1853 or 1854. 1
Loomis Lyman Langdon (1830-1910) told the Pennells that when he was at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in the class above Whistler,
'Whistler lived in the barracks near me ... I stood at the head of my class in drawing and painting and he at the head of his class in the same branches ... we painted a large picture together; he the figures and I the landscape part. It was for my class-mate, Cadet Wright. Poor Wright committed suicide ... two years after graduating.' 2
Whistler studied in West Point from June 1851 to June 1854 but failed to graduate; L. L. Langdon graduated in 1854.
Images
Figures in a Landscape, Whereabouts unknown
Subject
Titles
The original title is unknown, but it has been described as follows:
- 'figures and ... landscape' (1908, E. R. and J. Pennell). 3
- 'Figures in a Landscape' (1980, YMSM). 4
'Figures in a Landscape' is the preferred title.
Description
Loomis Lyman Langdon (1830-1910) described it as 'a large picture ... figures and … landscape.' 5
Site
Unknown.
Technique
Technique
It is not known whether this was an oil or watercolour, though it is likely that, like other known works by Whistler done at West Point, it was a watercolour. Accordingly Figures in a landscape m0175 was catalogued as a watercolour in 1995.
Loomis Lyman Langdon described it as a collaboration: 'we painted a large picture together; he the figures and I the landscape part.' 6
Conservation History
Unknown.
Frame
Unknown.
History
Provenance
- 1853/1854: painted for Thomas J. Wright (d. 1857), a classmate at the United States Military Academy at West Point;
- 1857: Thomas J. Wright died in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 26 October 1857.
Thomas J. Wright, the son of an army surgeon, Joseph J. B. Wright (fl. 1833), was a cadet at West Point from 1850-1854. On graduating he served in the army at Jefferson Barracks, and was on frontier duty from 1855 until his death in 1857.
Exhibitions
None.
Bibliography
Catalogues Raisonnés
- Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 2) as 'Figures in a Landscape'.
- MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 175) as 'Figures in a landscape'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- None.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
Monographs
- None.
Books on Whistler
- Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, pp. 305, 307.
Books, General
- None.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- None.
Journals 1906-Present
- None.
Websites
- None.
Unpublished
- None.
Other
- None.
Notes:
1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 2) implies a slightly earlier date, 1851.
2: Pennell 1908 [more], vol. 2, pp. 305, 307.
3: Pennell 1908 [more], vol. 2, p. 307.
4: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 2).
5: Pennell 1908, op. cit.
6: Pennell 1908 [more], vol. 2, p. 307.