The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Lovers dates from about 1854 and was given to Thomas de Kay Winans (1820-1878).

Lovers, Metropolitan Museum of Art,

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 164).

Images

Subject

Description

Lovers, Metropolitan Museum of Art,

A young man sprawls on the floor at left, leaning on and gazing adoringly up at a seated woman at right. The back of a woman is seen at left, presumably her duenna.

Technique

Technique

Lovers, Metropolitan Museum of Art,

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 164).

Conservation History

The original owners, the Winans family, stuck it into an album or scrapbook.

History

Provenance

• 1853/1854: given to Thomas de Kay Winans (1820-1878) and family;
• 1878-1970: passed by family descent to his daughter Celeste Marguerite Winans (Mrs G. M. Hutton) (1855-1925), her daughter Lucette Marguerite Hutton, Mrs H. A. Prichard (1885-1957), and grand-daughters, Margaret Celeste Prichard, Mrs T. A. Buell (1908-1970), Helen Lucette Prichard, Mrs J. M. King (1913-2005), and Sybil Agnes Prichard, Mrs E. G. Walk (1915-2009);
• 1970: given by Margaret C. Buell, Helen L. King, and Sybil A. Walk to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Exhibitions

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. 164) as 'Lovers'.

Journals 1906-Present

• Pressly, Nancy D., 'Whistler in America: An Album of Early Drawings', Metropolitan Museum Journal, New York, vol. 5, 1972, pp. 125-54.

Websites

• Metropolitan Museum of Art website as 'Woman with Young Man Resting at Her Feet'.