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Drawing of nude woman leaning against wall

The image for this drawing is black-and-white. A nude slender woman stands facing the viewer. Her head is tilted to the left, and her right hand is positioned under her chin. She wears her hair up in a bun. Just behind the woman is a horizontal line suggesting a surface about waist-tall. Her left elbow rests against the surface with her hand behind her back. She appears to lean her back against the surface. Her left leg is slightly bent and pointed. Whistler’s “butterfly” signature appears to the right of the woman.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.619
People
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
Title
Nude Study
Other Titles
Former Title: Nude Model
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1872-1875
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/308037

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Colored chalk with traces of graphite on brown wove paper
Dimensions
24.3 x 13.7 cm (9 9/16 x 5 3/8 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r.: butterfly monogram

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Sir Edmund Davis by 1904, through 1915; Hunt Henderson, New Orleans; his bequest to Tulane University, 1939; its sale to Grenville L. Winthrop; his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.619
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Theodore Duret, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son Oeuvre., Henri Floury (Paris, France, 1904), pp. 122 - 123, reproduced
  • Mortimer Menpes, Whistler as I Knew Him, Adam and Charles Black (London, 1904), p. 108, reproduced
  • T. Martin Wood, "The Edmund Davis Collection--II", The International Studio (June 1915), vol. LXV, no. 267, pp. 3-17, pp. 3-17
  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), p. 244
  • Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1995), p. 163 - 164, no. 451, reproduced
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 408-410, cat. no. 437, reproduced in b&w

Exhibition History

  • Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler: First President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, London, 02/22/1905 - 04/15/1905

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu