The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
M.0139
Copy after Cattermole's 'Man dispensing Alms'
Date
Copy after Cattermole's 'Man dispensing Alms' dates from 1853/1854, when Whistler was at USMA, West Point, studying under Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889).
Copy after Cattermole's 'Man dispensing Alms', USMA
It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 139).
Images
Copy after Cattermole's 'Man dispensing Alms', USMA
G. Cattermole, Man dispensing Alms, USMA
Subject
Description
Copy after Cattermole's 'Man dispensing Alms', USMA
A man clad in white emerges from an elaborate doorway with steps leading down. A crowd of people throng the steps, some kneeling in supplication or reverence.
Technique
Composition
After G. Cattermole, Man dispensing Alms, lithograph, USMA
Copy after Cattermole's 'Man dispensing Alms', USMA
This was copied from a hand-tinted lithograph in the collection at West Point. The lithograph, from a drawing by George Cattermole (1800-1868), signed with his monogram 'GC', measures 419 x 302 mm. It represented the 'Unknown' dispensing alms, a scene in I Promessi Sposi, the 1825-1827 novel by Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni (1785-1873).
Technique
Most of the drawing is in pen and ink over charcoal. Pencil was added in the shadows, and shades the forehead of the man in the doorway. White wash is visible in the central doorway. Several areas were rubbed out, and halfway up at right, 50 mm ( 2") from the edge, an area was scraped out. The monk's glass was rubbed out, and heightened.
It is likely that the drawing was corrected by Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889).
Conservation History
The paper has a small tear at the bottom edge, and a drip down the left side.
History
Provenance
- 1853/1854: drawn at the United States Military Academy, West Point, and kept first in the Department of Drawing, and then in the Library, Special Collections.
Exhibitions
- 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 62) as one of two 'Cadet Drawings under instruction'.
Bibliography
Catalogues Raisonnés
- MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 171) as "Copy after Cattermole's 'Man dispensing Alms' ".
Catalogues 1855-1905
- Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 62) as one of two 'Cadet Drawings under instruction'.