The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Dancing girl, on a fan dates from July 1895.

Dancing girl, on a fan, Private Collection

The earliest date inscribed on the fan is January 1895, written by Frederick Leighton (1830-1896), and other dates indicate it was constructed between January and November 1895. The fan would have been assembled in or shortly after 1895, perhaps by Walter Crane (1845-1915), for a special presentation. ¹

It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1423). This record has been updated and corrected.

Images

Subject

Description

A fan designed by Walter Crane (1845-1915), with twenty spokes decorated by people in social, artistic and musical circles.

Early photographs of the fan show 13 spokes. ² On the recto, as shown in these photographs, Whistler's was among the first eight designs, all of which showed women, mostly heads in profile. Five of the spokes were still blank. On the verso at this stage were more varied designs, including a windmill and a dancing girl by Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898). In its final form, there were twenty spokes and the order was re-arranged. The outermost spoke bore a painting of a crane, the signature of Walter Crane (1845-1915). A ribbon was wound through the spokes, just below the pictures. Most of the spokes had pen decoration but were pen and ink and some merely signatures. The order of the spokes was altered from the time when the photographs in the Whistler collection were taken, probably to give a more coherent and effective rhythm. ³

Dancing girl, on a fan, Private Collection

Contributors to the spokes of the fan included Walter Crane (1845-1915), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), George du Maurier (1834-1896), Charles Edward Hallé (1846-1919), John Everett Millais (1829-1896), Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898), Frederick Leighton (1830-1896), Laura Alma-Tadema and Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), Walford Graham Robertson (1867-1948), George Henry Boughton (1833-1905), and Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902).

Technique

Composition

Dancing girl, on a fan, Private Collection

In 1910 Whistler's painting on the fan was described as a drawing of a faun but the figure is a dancing woman, not half-human, half-goat. ⁴

Sketch for a fan, Freer Gallery of Art

Whistler made a detailed preliminary study for his spoke, Sketch for a fan m1422.

Technique

Whistler's figure is painted in watercolour on a circle, and signed with a butterfly, from which a long barbed tail curves down the spoke of the fan. The inner edges of all twenty spokes are painted with peacock feathers.

History

Provenance

• 1890s: the fan was designed by Walter Crane (1845-1915) and decorated by numerous people in artistic circles, including Whistler, probably for Lady Jean Palmer née Craig (d. 1909), wife of Sir Walter Palmer (1858-1910) of Huntley & Palmer Biscuits;
• 1910: sold at auction, Sotheby's, London, 4 May 1910 (lot 195) as 'A Uniquely Decorated Fan … formed by a lady of exalted rank (since deceased)', bought by 'Amory';
• 1911: with Ernest Brown & Phillips, London art dealers.
• 2009: sold at auction, New Jersey, and bought by a private collector;
• 2012: after the death of Stephen Harry Banks in 2011, passed to Steve Banks Fine Arts Inc., San Francisco.

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1423) as 'Dancing girl, on a fan'.

Books on Whistler

• Calvert, Robyne Erica, 'An Artistic Fan in Victorian Society', in Hermens, Erma and Joanna Meacock and Grischka Petri (eds), Connecting Whistler. Essays in Honour of Margaret F. MacDonald , pp. 35-41, online at https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_182035_en.pdf.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, repr. fig. 139.1-3.
• Calloway, Stephen, and Lynn Federle Orr, with Esmé Whittaker, Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2011; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2011-2012, Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco, 2012, repr., as 'The Fan of Lady X'.

SALE:

• Sotheby's, London, 4 May 1910 (lot 195) as 'A Uniquely Decorated Fan'.

Journals 1906-Present

• Sketch, vol. 72, no. 943, 22 February 1911, repr. p. 218.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• New York Sun, New York, 2 May 1910.
• Daily Telegraph, London, 4 May 1910.

Websites

• Neal, Alice, 'The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 beautifies Victoria & Albert Museum', 2011, Culture24 website.
• 'Artworks Form Part Of The Cult Of Beauty Exhibition At The Victoria and Albert Museum', Getty website.
• Calvert, Robyne, 'The Fan', in Artistic Dress, blog, 23 January 2012, website at https://artisticdress.wordpress.com.