The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Study: Seated Figure dates from 1878

Study: Seated Figure, Freer Gallery of Art

The drawing is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 694).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Study: Seated Figure, Freer Gallery of Art

Maud Franklin (1857-1939).

Technique

Composition

Study: Seated Figure, Freer Gallery of Art

This is closely related to the composition of Whistler's second lithotint Study c006, and may have been a preparatory drawing for it.

Frame

It was framed by Foord & Dickinson, carvers and gilders of 90 Wardour Street, London, according to a label.

History

Provenance

• 1880: sold after Whistler's bankruptcy, at auction, Sotheby's, London, 12-3 February 1880 (lot 83) as 'Crayon Sketch … of a lady seated', and bought by Thomas Way (1837-1915);
• By 1905: passed to his son, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913);
• 1905: bought from Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, in London in June;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

On 12 February 1880 Thomas Way wrote to tell Whistler he had bought one of 'The two framed studies of Miss F. in the Old Chair ... … So that you see no harm has been done you.' ¹

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 694).

Exhibitions

• 1879: possibly III Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1879 (cat. no. 273 or 274) 'Study in Chalk'.

By the terms of Freer's will the 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. 694) as 'Study: Seated Figure'.
• Spink, Nesta R., Harriet K. Stratis, and Martha Tedeschi, The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, (gen. eds, Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi), 2 vols., Chicago, 1998, p. 56 (lithotint, cat. no. 3).

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Possibly III Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1879 (cat. no. 273 or 274) 'Study in Chalk'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Art Sales', Academy, vol. 17, 21 February 1880, pp. 148-49.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 257, pl. 243.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1905.145a-b.