The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

M.1290
Mother and Child - The Pearl

Mother and Child - The Pearl

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1890/1892
Collection: Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Accession Number: F1904.1a-c
Medium: chalk and pastel
Support: brown wove paper laid down on card
Size: 7 3/16-7 1/4 x 10 7/8-10 15/16" (182-184 x 276-278 mm)
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none

Date

Mother and Child – The Pearl dates from 1890/1892.

Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art
Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art

It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1290).

Images

Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art
Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art

Subject

Sitter

Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art
Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art

Possibly Rose Amy Pettigrew (1872-1958) and her niece.

Technique

Composition

Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art
Mother and Child – The Pearl, Freer Gallery of Art

The composition resembles those of several lithographs of 1890, particularly Mother and Child, No. 3 c052.

David P. Curry (1984) compared it with Tintoretto's The Birth of the Milky Way. Whistler is known to have admired Tintoretto greatly, knew this specific painting, and indeed owned photographs of it. 1

Technique

There are faint signs of another drawing, a figure, underneath, sideways on, with her head above the 'Pearl's' right foot. The vertical lines above the figure are in fact the floor, dado and matting of this earlier drawing. There was a pot, perhaps with flowers, on the left, and a butterfly on the right. The butterfly is similar to the later drawing, so presumably the under-drawing was rubbed out and the paper re-used almost immediately.

The Freer Gallery of Art website confirms: 'An infrared photo reveals an earlier black chalk drawing of a standing figure with a pot of flowers' but adds, mistakenly, 'probably related to the Six Projects, a series of oil sketches from ca. 1868.' 2

Frame

It was framed by Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892).

History

Provenance

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1290).

Exhibitions

By the terms of Freer's will, this work cannot be lent to another venue.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

Catalogues 1855-1905

Catalogues 1906-Present

Websites


Notes:

1: GUL Whistler PH3/36-37. Curry 1984 [more], pp. 49, 273, 304.

2: Website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.1a-c.