The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Steps dates from 1880.

The Steps, Freer Gallery of Art

This pastel is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 786).

Images

Subject

Site

The Steps, Freer Gallery of Art

Venice, Italy. The site has not been identified although Grieve suggests that it could have been on the Rio de Sant' Ana at the east end of the Via Garibaldi. ¹

Technique

Technique

The Steps, Freer Gallery of Art

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 786).

History

Provenance

• 1882: bought from Whistler by Louisine Waldron Havemeyer (1855-1929);
• 1917: given in January to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Exhibitions

The Steps, framed, Freer Gallery of Art

• 1881: Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 23) as 'The Steps'.

By the terms of Freer's will, this pastel 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. 786) as 'The Steps'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 23) as 'The Steps'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., [Godwin, E. W.], 'Review of Venice Pastels Exhibition', British Architect, 4 February 1881, pp. 59-64.
• 'Mr Whistler's "Venice Pastels" ', Queen, 12 February 1881.
• Anon., 'An Impressionist', Our Continent, 12 July 1882, pp. 12-14, at p. 13, repr. p. 3.
• Anon., Artist, vol. 21, 1898, pp. 42-44, woodcut by J. H. E. Whitney repr.

Books on Whistler

• Grieve, Alastair, Whistler's Venice, New Haven and London, 2000, pp. 131, 134, repr. pl. 165.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, Aldershot and California, 2001, pp. 59-60, repr. pl. 68, photograph from the Archivio Filippi repr. pl. 69.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 261, pl. 250.
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, p. 34, repr. fig. 23 (not exhibited).

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1917.4a-b.