Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Head of an Old Man Smoking

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

  • 'Head of an Old Man smoking' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). 1
  • 'Tête d'un marchand de pots de faïence fumant sa pipe' (1905, L. Bénédite). 2
  • 'Tête de vieillard fumant / 'Tête de vieux fumant une pipe' (1945/1950, J. W. Revillon). 3
  • 'Head of an Old Man Smoking' (1980, YMSM). 4
  • 'L'homme à la pipe / Tête d'un vieux marchand de pots de faïence fumant sa pipe' (2016, Musée d'Orsay). 5

The earliest known title, 'Head of an Old Man Smoking', also used in the 1980 catalogue, has been retained.

Description

Head of an Old Man Smoking, Musée d'Orsay
Head of an Old Man Smoking, Musée d'Orsay

A head and shoulders portrait of an elderly, wrinkled and weather-beaten man, looking directly at the viewer, wearing a battered hat and smoking a pipe. He has a brown jacket over a white shirt, but no cravat. It is in a vertical format.

Sitter

The first owner, Charles L. Drouet (1836-1908), told the Pennells in 1900 that the sitter, who sat to Whistler for 40 sous, was a seller of 'pots-de-chambre' (chamber pots). 6 The Pennells however, interpreted the subject later as:

'Head of an Old Man Smoking, an old pedlar of crockery whom Whistler came across one day by chance in the Halles, brought to his studio and painted, a full face with large brown hat, for long the property of M. Drouet.' 7

Notes:

1: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 3).

2: Bénédite 1905 A [more], at p. 407.

3: Joseph Whistler Revillon (1886-1955) notes the source of these titles as 'owner' and 'P': Revillon, Draft Catalogue [more] (cat. no. 22).

4: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 25).

5: Musée d'Orsay website at http://www.musee-orsay.fr.

6: Pennell 1921C [more], pp. 92-93.

7: Pennell 1908 [more], vol. 1, p. 74.

Last updated: 1st November 2020 by Margaret