The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Seated figure may originally have been drawn about 1873, but reworked and signed 1889/1890.

Seated figure, Freer Gallery of Art

The drawing is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 496).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Not identified.

Technique

Technique

Seated figure, Freer Gallery of Art

Nesta Spink suggested that Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) pulled this drawing through a printing press to produce a counter-proof on lithographic transfer paper. ¹ The counterproof captured all the details of line in the original. This image was transferred to a lithographic stone and printed. The print was catalogued by Levy as an original lithograph by Whistler, but it is a reproduction. ² The slightly flattened drawing may then have been touched up and repaired either by Whistler or by Way. It was signed by Whistler around 1890.

It is simply not clear if this was an experiment approved by the artist.

History

Provenance

• 1870s: acquired by Thomas Way (1837-1915), London;
• 1905: bought from his son Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, in June 1905;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 496).

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 99, repr.).

By the terms of C. L. Freer's will, this drawing can not be lent to other venues.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 496) as 'Seated figure'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 99, repr.).

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 269, pl. 266.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1905.125a-b.