The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
M.0927
r.: Ranelagh Gardens; v.: Designs for a china cabinet
Date
r.: Ranelagh Gardens; v.: Designs for a china cabinet dates from 1883/1884.
r.: Ranelagh Gardens, Freer Gallery of Art
v.: Designs for a china cabinet, Freer Gallery of Art
This work is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 927).
Images
r.: Ranelagh Gardens, Freer Gallery of Art
v.: Designs for a china cabinet, Freer Gallery of Art
Maud seated in the open, Private Collection
Subject
Site
r.: Ranelagh Gardens, Freer Gallery of Art
The title first associated with this watercolour suggests it was painted in Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea, London, which had been established on the site of Ranelagh House, as public Pleasure Gardens. The Gardens are just west of Chelsea Bridge Road. There is also a Ranelagh Gardens in Paris, named after the English one, close to the Musée Marmotton.
Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) noted (in a document now in the Freer Gallery of Art), that it was 'Maude seated at breakfast in the garden of the Vale Chelsea' (that is, Whistler's house in The Vale, Chelsea, London. The Vale was just off the King's Road
Sitter
r.: Ranelagh Gardens, Freer Gallery of Art
Maud Franklin (1857-1939) posed in a similar outfit for Maud seated in the open m0926.
Technique
Technique
See technical details in Whistler in Watercolour, Freer|Sackler, Washington, 2019, website.
History
Provenance
- By 1905: owned by Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London;
- 1905: bought in July by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
- 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.
Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 927).
Exhibitions
It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.
By the terms of Freer's will, this work 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. 927) as 'r.: Ranelagh Gardens; v.: Designs for a china cabinet'.
Books on Whistler
- Glazer, Lee, Emily Jacobson, Blythe McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor: Lovely Little Games, New Haven and London, 2019.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 195, pl. 124, 220.
Websites
- Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1905.122a-b, as 'Breakfast in the Garden'.
- Whistler in Watercolour, Freer|Sackler, Washington, 2019, website.