The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
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The Witch of Endor raising Samuel
Date
The Witch of Endor raising Samuel probably dates from the summer of 1848. Whistler's mother Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881) wrote from St Petersburg, Russia to her son, then in Portishead, England, 'Your master looked at that sketch you did for me "the Witch of Endor raising Samuel" and said it was a good effort.' 1 The 'master' was Alexander Osipovich Koritsky (1818-1866), who had been Whistler's teacher in Russia.
Images
The Witch of Endor raising Samuel, whereabouts unknown
Subject
Description
The first Book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible describes the Witch of Endor as summoning the prophet Samuel's spirit, at the demand of King Saul of the Kingdom of Israel (I Samuel 28:7-14).
Technique
Composition
The story of Saul and the Witch of Endor was a popular subject for melodramatic pictures in the 18th and early 19th centuries. This sketch by Whistler might have been his own invention or a copy of a work by another artist.
Benjamin West's painting Saul and the Witch of Endor (1777, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT) was well known through numerous engravings, including an etching and engraving by William Sharp first published by John Boydell in 1788. Washington Allston's 1820 painting (Mead Art Museum at Amherst College) was engraved by Wagstaff & Andrews and others. In the UK, Charles Robert Leslie's Saul and the Witch of Endor raising the ghose of Samuel before Saul (1814) might possibly have been known to the young Whistler, who attended his lectures at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1849. 2
History
Provenance
- 1848: owned by Whistler's mother Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881), St Petersburg, Russia.
Exhibitions
None are known.
Bibliography
Catalogues Raisonnés
- None.
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. GUW #06370.
Notes:
1: A. McN. Whistler to J. Whistler, 2 November 1848, GUW #06370.
2: Whistler later wrote that he attended Leslie's lectures at the Royal Academy of Arts; see J. Whistler to A. McN. Whistler, 17, 19 and 20 March 1849, GUW #06390.