The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Sam Weller and Mary fold a carpet dates from about 1853, after Whistler had read Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). It was given to William Robertson Boggs (1829-1911), Adjutant of the Corps of Cadets at West Point.

Sam Weller and Mary fold a carpet, private collection

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 135).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Sam Weller and Mary fold a carpet, private collection

Sam Weller was a comic character, and Mary, a housemaid, in The Pickwick Papers (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club), which was first published in monthly parts from April 1836-November 1837 and in book form in 1837. Whistler read the edition in the USMA library, West Point.

Technique

Technique

Sam Weller and Mary fold a carpet, private collection

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 135).

History

Provenance

• 1852/1853: given to William Robertson Boggs (1829-1911);
• 1911: bequeathed to his daughter, Mrs William Barret Taylor, née Elizabeth McCaw Boggs (1857-1922), Winston, NC;
• 1922: bequeathed to her daughter, Mrs Ralph Long née Cornelia Storrs Taylor (1895-1972), Wilmington, NC;
• 1972-present: passed by family descent to a private collection.

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 135); the record has been revised.

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, 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. 135) as 'Sam Weller and Mary fold a carpet'.