The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Mother and child dates from 1890/1893.

Mother and child, Fogg Art Museum

It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1288).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Mother and child, Fogg Art Museum

Probably Rose Amy Pettigrew (1872-1958) with her niece.

Technique

Technique

Mother and child, Fogg Art Museum

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1288).

History

Provenance

• By 1894: with Alexander Reid (1854-1928), Glasgow art dealer;
• By 1895: owned by William Burrell (1861-1958), Glasgow, until at least 1907.
• 1929: consigned by Vicars Brothers to Christie's, London, 1 March 1929 (lot 122) as 'A Mother and Child', and bought by Colnaghi's, London dealers;
• 1929: sold to Kennedy, New York dealers, 4 May 1929;
• 1929: sold through Martin Birnbaum (1878-1970) to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), 8 November 1929;
• 1943: bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum.

See also MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1288).

Exhibitions

• 1894: 64th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1894 (cat. no. 322) as 'Mother and child'.
• 1895: A Collection of Paintings representing The Glasgow School, Artists of Denmark and Some Others, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1895 (cat. no. 163, repr.) as 'Mother and child'.

On 30 November 1895, Lucy Monroe in The Critic commented that Whistler had 'sent three pastels, delicate and exquisite in colour – suggestions, dreams, flashes of light from the wings of the butterfly as it flits by.'

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1288) as 'Mother and child'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 64th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1894 (cat. no. 322) as 'Mother and child'.
• A Collection of Paintings representing The Glasgow School, Artists of Denmark and Some Others, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1895 (cat. no. 163, repr.) as 'Mother and child'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Monroe, Lucy, 'Chicago Letter' (25 November 1895), The Critic, New York, no. 719, 30 November 1895, pp. 374-75 at p. 374.

Books, General

• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr, Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, (eds), American Paintings at Harvard, vol. 2, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 429-30 (cat. no. 457), repr. p. 429

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• Gillerman, Dorothy W. (ed.), Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1969, p. 624.

SALE:

• Christie's, London, 1 March 1929 (lot 122) as 'A Mother and Child'.

Websites

• Harvard Art Museums website at https://www.harvardartmuseums.org.