The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Rose et argent: Fleurs de printemps dates from about 1893.

Rose et argent: Fleurs de printemps, The Hunterian

The drawing is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1391).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Rose et argent: Fleurs de printemps, The Hunterian

Unknown.

Technique

Technique

Rose et argent: Fleurs de printemps, The Hunterian

The washes were mixed with white body colour, applied with a full brush, and dry with hard edges. Highlights clarified the shapes and shone with an opalescent quality against the hazy background. A pencil line was drawn over the paint, accentuating the extreme curve of her back.

Some washes on the floor, the blue line in front of her knee and on her hands, are traces of an earlier drawing, upside down, of a girl in a blue cap with yellow ribbons on cap and dress, leaning on a rail. Her face was scraped out.

Conservation History

The brown fibrous paper has a slight grain and holds chalk well. It has darked at the edges. It has been cut unevenly down the top and right sides. There are traces of glue and gilt from the old mount.

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death and bequeathed to his sister-in-law and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1935: given by Miss Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.

See further details in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1391).

Exhibitions

• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat, no. 94) as 'Rose et argent. Fleurs de printemps'.

By the terms of Miss Birnie Philip's gift, the painting 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. 1391) as 'Rose et argent: Fleurs de printemps'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 94) as 'Rose et argent. Fleurs de printemps'.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Aquarellen, Pastels, Teekingen, Etsen, Lithographien en een Schilderij door James McNeill Whistler, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1906 (cat. no. 15) as as 'Rose et argent, Fleurs de printemps'. .

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk.