The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Fighting Peacocks dates from 1876. It is a study of Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178.

Fighting Peacocks, New York Public Library

Panel of Fighting Peacocks in Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, Freer Gallery of Art

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 581).

Images

Subject

Site

Fighting Peacocks, New York Public Library

The Peacock Room, 49 Prince’s Gate, London.

Technique

Composition

Fighting Peacocks, New York Public Library

Panel of Fighting Peacocks in Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, Freer Gallery of Art

It is a study for the panel on the south side of Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178.

Conservation History

The paper, now a pale beige in tone, has a rough edge at the top, fitting into the other half of the same sheet Three Peacock shutters m0580.

History

Provenance

• 1876: drawn for and acquired by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904).
• 1899: given to the New York Public Library.

Exhibitions

It was not 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. 581) as 'Fighting Peacocks'.
• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (room, cat. no. 178).

Books on Whistler

• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 298, repr. fig. 7.4.