The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Head of an Old Man Smoking probably dates from the spring of 1858.

In 1858 the Maison Fontaine, frame-makers at Cité Bergère, No. 2, and Faubourg Montmartre, No. 6, Paris, sent Whistler a bill for purchases during the year, including frames for size 6 canvasses in February and March. ¹ The French canvas size 6 is 41 × 33 cm for a figure, 41 × 27 cm for a landscape, and 41 × 24 cm for a marine. Head of an Old Man Smoking y025 matches the size for a figure canvas, which suggests that this painting could have been painted early in 1858.

Head of an Old Man Smoking, Musée d'Orsay

La Mère Gérard (1), Colby College Museum of Art

The technique is comparable to other paintings of this period, particularly La Mère Gérard (1) y026 and, to a lesser extent, Portrait of Luke A. Ionides y032.

The Pennells in their biography of Whistler implied a date of about 1859, which is possible, stylistically, but the evidence points to a date of 1858. ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Head of an Old Man smoking' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). ³
• 'Tête d'un marchand de pots de faïence fumant sa pipe' (1905, L. Bénédite). ⁴
• 'Tête de vieillard fumant / 'Tête de vieux fumant une pipe' (1945/1950, J. W. Revillon). ⁵
• 'Head of an Old Man Smoking' (1980, YMSM). ⁶
• 'L'homme à la pipe / Tête d'un vieux marchand de pots de faïence fumant sa pipe' (2016, Musée d'Orsay). ⁷

The earliest known title, 'Head of an Old Man Smoking', also used in the 1980 catalogue, has been retained.

Description

Head of an Old Man Smoking, Musée d'Orsay

A head and shoulders portrait of an elderly, wrinkled and weather-beaten man, looking directly at the viewer, wearing a battered hat and smoking a pipe. He has a brown jacket over a white shirt, but no cravat. It is in a vertical format.

Sitter

The first owner, Charles L. Drouet (1836-1908), told the Pennells in 1900 that the sitter, who sat to Whistler for 40 sous, was a seller of 'pots-de-chambre' (chamber pots). ⁸ The Pennells however, interpreted the subject later as:

'Head of an Old Man Smoking, an old pedlar of crockery whom Whistler came across one day by chance in the Halles, brought to his studio and painted, a full face with large brown hat, for long the property of M. Drouet.' ⁹

Technique

Technique

Head of an Old Man Smoking, Musée d'Orsay

A vivid portrait, painted in bold colours, thickly impasted on the face, hat and shirt, and worked with a palette knife on the shirt. The colours are clearly separated, the brushstrokes distinct. The hat is outlined in black, but the outline of the shoulders is blurred. By contrast the background and coat are merely scrubbed in thinly. An area at the top of the hat has been scraped off, and there are thin scratched lines over the coat.

Conservation History

Unknown. The verso bears the names of two Paris art suppliers and frame makers, 'J. BOVARD / toiles et couleurs' and 'André Chenue / Lavetier Emballeur / 5 Rue de la Terrasse Paris'. J. Bovard (fl. 1850/1862) had premises in the rue de Buci (Bussy) in the 1850s, until about 1862; his firm continued as 'La maison Bovard Chabot' (or Chabod) until the end of the century, and under 'Chabod veuve' (the widowed Mme Chabod) from 1900-1905. Andre Chenue (fl. 1890s) represented a long established and still existing logistics company, and was frequently employed by the artist in the late 19th century.

History

Provenance

• By 1905: owned by the sculptor Charles L. Drouet (1836-1908), Paris;
• 1908: bequeathed by Drouet to the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris;
• 1909: accepted by the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris;
• 1922-1925: exhibited in the Musée du Louvre, galerie du Jeu de Paume, Paris;
• 1925: transferred to the Musée du Louvre, Paris;
• 1983: transferred to the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

According to the Pennells, Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) of Detroit wanted it, but was not prepared to give Drouet the 2000 francs asked. ¹⁰

Exhibitions

• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (no. 3) as 'Head of an Old Man smoking'.

It was not exhibited in Whistler’s lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 25), plate 20, as 'Head of an Old Man Smoking'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Exposition des œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l’École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 3) as 'Head of an Old Man smoking'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Bénédite, Léonce, 'Artistes Contemporains: Whistler', Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 33, 1905, pp. 403-10, 496-511; vol. 34, 1905, pp. 142-58, 231-46, at vol. 33, p. 407, repr. as 'Tête d'un marchand de pots de faïence fumant sa pipe'.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907 (cat. no. 185).
• Laver, James, Whistler, 2nd edition, London, 1951, p. 67.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. vi, 74.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, pp. 92-93.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (cat. no. 6).

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Compin, Isabelle, Geneviève Lacambre, and Anne Roquebert, Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 1990, as 'L'homme à la pipe'.

EXHIBITION:

• Toulouse-Lautrec: ses amis et ses maîtres: commémoration du cinquantième anniversaire de la mort du peintre, Musée Toulous-Lautrec, Albi, 1951.
• Young, Andrew McLaren, James McNeill Whistler: An Exhibition of Paintings and Other Works, Organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain and the English-Speaking Union of the United States, London and New York, 1960 (cat. no. 1).
• de Rambures, Jean-Louis, and Antoinette Baumier, Le tabac dans l'Art, l'Histoire et la Vie, Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris, 1961 (cat. no. 124) repr. p. 64.
• Bajou, Thierry, La peinture américaine dans les collections du Louvre, Blérancourt, Musée national de la coopération franco-américaine, 1984.
• Ayako Ono, ホイッスラー展. James McNeill Whistler Retrospective, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyōto, 2014, and Yokohama Museum of Art, 2014–2015 (cat. no. 2).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Musée d'Orsay website at http://www.musee-orsay.fr, as 'L'homme à la pipe'.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 22) 'Tête de vieillard fumant / 'Tête de vieux fumant une pipe.'

Other

• Dezanous, A., Catalogue du Jeu de Paume des Tuileries, 1922-1940, Mss, Musée du Louvre, Inv. No. 20,143, p. 153, no. 2, 'L'homme à la pipe'.
• Livre de mouvement Jeu de Paume 1923-1933, p. 6, no. 265, 'L’homme à la pipe.'
• Codicil du 21 April 1908, Archives du Louvre 1908, 15 May, recording Drouet's legacy of 5 July 1907.