- Gallery Text
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Green and Violet depicts Ellen Cobden, wife of Whistler’s onetime pupil Walter Sickert. Using wide and expressive brushstrokes, Whistler painted his sitter in a black and white dress, the texture and color of which contrast with the softened earth tones of her face and hair. Whistler’s wife described the painting as “very pretty . . . It is exactly like her, a funny little fat lady — a very graceful one rather Dutch in character.”
Whistler titled many of his portraits with the names of colors, emphasizing their dual nature as both formal studies and likenesses of the sitters. In Green and Violet, the sitter is almost secondary to the overall composition, her mass a counterbalance to the flattened sofa.
- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- 1943.166
- People
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James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
- Title
- Green and Violet: Mrs. Walter Sickert
- Other Titles
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Former Title: Portrait of Mrs. Walter Sickert
Former Title: Portrait de Mme S., vert et violet - Classification
- Paintings
- Work Type
- painting
- Date
- 1893-1894
- Places
- Creation Place: North America, United States
- Culture
- American
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/230026
- Location
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Level 2, Room 2710, North Arcade
View this object's location on our interactive map - Physical Descriptions
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- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 86.4 x 62.2 cm (34 x 24 1/2 in.)
framed: 108 x 84.5 x 8.9 cm (42 1/2 x 33 1/4 x 3 1/2 in.) - Inscriptions and Marks
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- Signed: c.l.: Butterfly monogram
- label: on old backing board, now removed, rectangle: [printed:] EXPOSTION DES ŒUVRES DE /JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER. / Paris, Mai, 1905. / Descrption [handwritten, black ink:] Portrait de / Mrs Cobden Sickert / Vert & violet / [printed:] Prêté par [handwritten, black ink:] Mr Cobden Sickert / 5 Raymond Cdgs [?] Srays Tom [?] / Londres.
- inscription: old backing board, now removed, blue pencil: 4367A
- label: on old backing board, now removed, square with serrated edges: [printed:] U. S. CUSTOMS / Panama-Pacific International Exposition / EXHIBIT / Serial No. [handwritten, brown ink:] 1352 / [printed:] Case No. [handwritten, brown ink:] P2.5. / [printed:] Lot No. [handwritten, brown ink:] 3.
- label: on old backing board, now removed, rectangle: [printed:] CARNEGIE INSTITUTE / DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS / PITTSBURG, PA. / [handwritten, graphite:] Reg 522 / [handwritten, blue pencil:] 128C
- Provenance
- Ellen Cobden Sickert, from the artist, 1886. [Howard Young Galleries, New York, by 1919]. Harold Somers, Brooklyn, by 1924. [Knoedler Galleries, New York]. [Milch Galleries, New York, by 1931]. [John Levy Galleries, by 1935, through 1940], sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, March 10, 1941 [through Martin Birnbaum], bequest; to Fogg Art Musuem, 1943.
- Acquisition and Rights
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- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
- Accession Year
- 1943
- Object Number
- 1943.166
- Division
- European and American Art
- Contact
- am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
- THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Publication History
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Salon, exh. cat., Societé Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Paris, France, 1894), no. 85
Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels, & Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, exh. cat., Copley Society (Boston, MA, 1904), no. 35
L'oeuvre de James MacNeill Whistler, exh. cat., Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Paris, France, 1905), no. 26
Elisabeth Luther Cary, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study with a Tentative List of the Artist's Work, Moffat, Yard and Company (New York, 1907), no. 35
Bernhard Sickert, Whistler, Duckworth & Co. (London, England, 1908), no. 110
Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, J. B. Lippincott/W. Heinemann (Philadelphia, PA and London, England, 1911), pp. 322, 327
[Reproduction only], Art and Progress, (August 1915)., reproduced on frontispiece
International Exhibition of Fine Arts, exh. cat., Panama-Pacific Exposition (San Francisco, CA, 1915), no. 275
Theodore Duret, Whistler, J. B. Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA, 1917), p. 78, reproduced p. 106
Alfred Thornton, "Walter Richard Sickert", Artwrok: A Quarterly, Artwork Publishing Co. (London, England, Spring 1930), vol. VI, no. 21, pp. 1-18, p. 1
Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Thirty-Five Portraits from American Collections", Art News Annual (May 16, 1931), pp. 3-4, reproduced p. 69
The Forty-Eighth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Water Colors, Sculpture, Graphic Arts, exh. cat., State Fair of Texas Art Gallery (Dallas, TX, 1934), ill. p. 7
[Unidentified article], Art Digest (October 1, 1937), repr. p. 7
Seven Centuries of Painting, exh. cat., California Palace of the Legion of Honor (San Francisco, CA, 1939), no. L-165, reproduced
"Names Withheld", Art News (February 1950), p. 17
Andrew Dempsey, "Whistler and Sickert: A Friendship and its End", Apollo (January 1966), pp. 30-37
Denys Sutton, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolors, Phaidon Press (London, England, 1966), repr. plate 97
Stuart Preston, Whistler, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1971)
Stanley Weintraub, Whistler: A Biography, Weybright and Talley (New York, NY, 1974), p. 279
Andrew McLaren Young and Margaret F. MacDonald, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, Yale University Press (New Haven, 1980), vol. I: no. 338, p. 161; vol. II, reproduced in b/w, plate 230
Kenneth Baker, "What Matters Most in a Painting", The Christian Science Monitor (September 9, 1983), ill. p. 24
Robin Spencer, ed., Whistler: A Retrospective, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. (New York, NY, 1989), reproduced in color, plate 88, p. 283
Wendy Baron and Richard Shone, Sickert: Paintings, exh. cat., Yale University Press (New Haven and London, 1992), p. 62, fig. 73
Linda Merrill, After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, exh. cat., SDZ (Belgium, 2003), p. 93, fig. 82 (as part of installation)
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. 430-31, cat. no. 458, reproduced in color, p. 431
- Exhibition History
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Unidentified Exhibition, Salon de Societe Nationale, 1894, Salon de Societe Nationale, Paris, 01/01/1894 - 12/31/1894
Unidentified Exhibition, New Gallery, 1894, New Gallery, London, 01/01/1894 - 12/31/1894
Unidentified Exhibition, Glasgow Fine Art Institute, 1895, Glasgow Fine Art Institute, Glasgow, 01/01/1895 - 12/31/1895
Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels, & Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society of Boston, 02/23/1904 - 03/28/1904
L'Oeuvre de James McNeill Whistler, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 05/01/1905 - 06/30/1905
International Exhibition of Fine Arts, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 01/01/1915 - 12/31/1915
Unidentified Exhibition, Texas State Fair, 1934, Texas State Fair, Dallas, 10/01/1934 - 10/31/1934
Unidentified Exhibition, Montana Art Museum, 1937, The Art Museum of Missoula Montana, Missoula, 01/01/1937 - 12/31/1937
Seven Centuries of Painting, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 12/01/1939 - 12/31/1939
Unidentified Exhibition, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1940, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 05/01/1940 - 05/31/1940
The American Spirit in Portraiture, 1675 - 1900, Fogg Art Museum, 01/19/1951 - 02/24/1951
For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004
32Q: 2710 North Arcade, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050
- Subjects and Contexts
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Google Art Project
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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