Painting of head and torso of young woman
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A light-skinned young woman can be seen from the waist up. She faces the viewer. Her red hair is tied up, and she has curly bangs. Her eyes appear to be blue or green, and her mouth and cheeks are a coral pink. She wears an olive-colored dress with a large gray ruff-like collar. The background behind her is a dark blue-gray. The woman is painted in a soft, almost blurred style. The paint shows some signs of age, including some cracking all over and some flaking near the edges of the image.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.164
People
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
Title
Miss Maud Franklin
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1872-1873
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/230341

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
62.7 x 41 cm (24 11/16 x 16 1/8 in.)
framed: 82.2 x 61.6 x 7.6 cm (32 3/8 x 24 1/4 x 3 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • label: verso, on stretcher, circular, red border: D597
  • label: verso, on stretcher, rectangle with cut corners: 8022 / Whistler
  • inscription: back of frame, impressed: M. Grieve co. / Hand Carved / New York and London

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Purchased by Thomas Way, Sr., London; 1879, gift; to his son, T. R. Way. Hunt Henderson, New Orleans, bequest; to Tulane University, 1939, sold [through Macdonald Gallery, New York]; to Grenville L. Winthrop, April 1941, 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
1943.164
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Andrew McLaren Young and Margaret F. MacDonald, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, Yale University Press (New Haven, 1980), no. 132, p. 81 in vol. I; reproduced in b/w pl. 96 in vol. II
  • 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. 405-06, cat. no. 434, reproduced in b&w, p. 406
  • Devon Cox, The Street of Wonderful Possibilities: Whistler, Wilde and Sargent in Tite Street, Frances Lincoln Limited (London, 2015), repr. p. 46
  • Richard Bionda, Matthijs Maris, 2017, p. 233, repr. as 69B

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