The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

r.: Fumette; v.: Dancing clowns date from about 1858.

r.: Fumette, Freer Gallery of Art

v.: Dancing clowns, Freer Gallery of Art

The drawings are fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 289).

Images

Subject

Description

v.: Dancing clowns, Freer Gallery of Art

The clowns are based on a lithograph by Paul Gavarni (1804-1866), "Air: Larifla! … Nos Femm' sont cou-cou" from Impressions de Ménage, Paris, 2nd series, no. 24, 1847.

Sitter

r.: Fumette, Freer Gallery of Art

Eloise ('Fumette') (fl. 1840-1858).

Technique

Composition

v.: Dancing clowns, Freer Gallery of Art

The clowns are a copy of a lithograph by Paul Gavarni (1804-1866), "Air: Larifla! … Nos Femm' sont cou-cou" from Impressions de Ménage, Paris, 2nd series, no. 24, 1847.

Conservation History

The sheet may have come from an exercise book.

History

Provenance

• 1858: probably given to Deborah Delano Haden (1825-1908) or her husband Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910);
• 1898: sold through Wunderlich, New York dealers, to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919);
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Due to the conditions of Freer's will, it cannot be lent to another venue.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 289) as 'r.: Fumette; v.: Dancing clowns'.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 235, pl. 200.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1898.150, as 'A two-sided drawing of Fumette and Dancing Clowns'.