The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Petite Bonne à la porte d'une auberge probably dates from the late 1880s, between 1887 and 1889, but could be later. ¹

Petite Bonne à la porte d'une auberge, Private collection

It is difficult to date: it has been dated from the technique and butterfly signature.

Images

Subject

Titles

Only one title is known:

• 'Petite bonne a la porte d'une Auberge' (1905, ISSPG). ²
• 'Petite Bonne à la porte d'une auberge' (1980, YMSM). ³

Description

Petite Bonne à la porte d'une auberge, Private collection

A small figure study in vertical format, showing a young maid outside the door of an inn, facing the viewer. She has bare feet, and holds a brush in her right hand. She wears a scarf or bonnet over her hair, and a white apron over her kilted up skirts.

Site

The inn has not been identified, although it is assumed to have been in France.

Sitter

The little maid has not been identified.

Technique

Technique

Petite Bonne à la porte d'une auberge, private collection

It was painted carefully, with comparatively small brushstrokes.

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• By 1905: Mrs H. S. Schwann (dates unknown);
• 1924: sold by David Croal Thomson (1855-1930), Barbizon House, to Scott and Fowles, New York, and by them to an American collector.
• Date unknown: Ellen Henderson (1869-1935);
• Date unknown: Hunt Henderson (1869-1939), New Orleans;
• 1939: passed to his wife Jeanne Montgomery Crawford (Mrs Hunt Henderson) (dates unknown), and to their son, Charles Crawford Henderson (d. 2016), and his wife, New Orleans.
• 1972: Knoedler's, New York dealers, by February 1972.
• 1975: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 28 February 1975 (lot 18), and bought by Paul F. Walter (1935-2017), New York;
• 1997: sold at auction, Christie's, New York, 4 December 1997 (lot 21) for $85,000.
• 2015: Berger Collection Educational Trust.

Mrs H. S. Schwann lent it to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in 1905. According to the London art dealer David Croal Thomson (1855-1930), it was sold through Scott & Fowles to an unnamed American collector. There are several gaps in the recorded provenance thereafter.

The Berger Collection Educational Trust was started in 1996 by the late William M. B. Berger and his wife Bernadette Johnson Berger, and is housed at Denver Art Museum.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 107) as 'Petite bonne a la porte d'une Auberge'.

It is not known to have been 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. 367), plate 234, as 'Petite Bonne à la porte d'une auberge'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 107) as 'Petite bonne a la porte d'une Auberge' (de luxe edition) repr. f.p. 116.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

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, p. 115.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, repr. pl. 102.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITIONS:

• Thomson, David Croal, Barbizon House: An Illustrated Record, London, 1924 (cat. no. 21).
• Early Masters of Modern Art: A Local Collection Exhibited Anonymously, Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1959 (cat. no. 52).
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 69).
• New Orleans Collects: Early Masters of Modern Art, Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1968 (cat. no. 54).
• William Merritt Chase in the Company of Friends, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York, 1979.
• Hail, Britannia! Six Centuries of British Art from the Berger Collection, Dixon Gallery, Memphis, TN, organized by the Denver Art Museum and made possible by the Berger Collection Educational Trust, 2015.

SALES:

• Christie's, London, 28 February 1975 (lot 18).
• Christie's, New York, 4 December 1997 (lot 21).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Art History News, 14 June 2018, Blog at http://arthistorynewsreport.blogspot.com.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 302).

Other

• None.