Titles

Only one title has been suggested:

• 'Ajaccio, Corsica' (1966, D. Sutton). 1
• 'Ajaccio, Corsica' (1980, YMSM). 2

Description

Ajaccio, Corsica, Fogg Art Museum

A landscape in horizontal format. In the foreground at left are a woman and child. A low escarpment runs across the centre, leading at right to a ramshackle building that appears to be a hen house. A green hill rises behind, and behind the rocky summit, to right, the grey roof of a small house is visible. The sky is pale blue-grey.

Site

The site is identified by a note on the verso of the frame, but this is not in Whistler's hand, and so is not completely reliable.

Ajaccio, the capital city of Corsica, is situated on the west coast of the French island, in the Mediterranean. Whistler went there to convalesce in 1901. This painting could have been done in the hills behind the town.

An alternative site may be the hills above the cliffs of Lyme Regis, Dorset, where there are outcrops of rock. Whistler is known to have worked there in 1895 and tried to sell a painting, Landscape, Lyme Regis [YMSM 447], in that year. 3