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Page with drawing of flowers and lines on one side and yellow rectangles on the other

This page has two separate drawings, one on one side and one on the other. The recto side appears divided into large horizontal stripes of contrasting patterns. At the top is a thin line resembling grassy ground, followed by a section of equidistant vertical bars. Below this is a wide stripe with scattered white flowers an another stripe with vertical bars. On the verso side are four rectangles on the left with a larger yellow rectangle taking up the right side of the image. The large yellow rectangle has a pattern of multiple concentric rectangles, resembling the shape of a door.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.610
People
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
Title
Design for Matting; verso: Design for Panelling
Other Titles
Former Title: Design with Flowers
Former Title: Ornamental Design
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1873 -1875
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/308003

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black, white, and blue pastel on brown wove paper
Dimensions
28.2 x 18.4 cm (11 1/8 x 7 1/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.l.: butterfly monogram
  • label: removed from old mount, now in curatorial file, paper, printed: Scott & Fowles / Dealers in High Class Paintings / 667 Fifth Avenue / New York.
  • inscription: upper right, graphite: 1442
  • inscription: lower left, graphite: [difficult to decipher--see file for transcription]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Dowdeswell Gallery, London; their sale to Colnaghi, London, March 28, 1917; their sale to Scott and Fowles, New York, June 1921; Hunt Henderson, New Orleans; his bequest to Tulane University, 1939; its sale to Grenville L. Winthrop, April 1941; 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
1943.610
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

  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), p. 244
  • David Park Curry, "Whistler and Decoration", The Magazine Antiques (November 1984), pp. 1186-1199, fig. 9 (recto only)
  • David Park Curry, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, exh. cat., Freer Gallery of Art / W.W. Norton & Co. (New York and Washington, DC, 1984), p. 185, fig. 106.1 (recto only)
  • Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: A Reexamination, ed. Ruth E. Fine, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., 1987), reproduced, fig. 10, p. 73
  • Deanna Marohn Bendix, Diabolical Designs: Paintings, Interiors, and Exhibitions of James McNeill Whistler, exh. cat., Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, DC, 1995), pg. 111
  • Richard Dorment and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1995), reproduced under no. 73, p. 158
  • Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1995), pp. 182 - 183, no 493 (recto and verso), reproduced
  • Jane Turner, The Encyclopedia of American Art before 1914, Macmillan Publishers Limited (London, England, 2000), p. 627
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), pp. 470-71, cat. 214, ill.
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), p. 486, cat. 214, ill.
  • David Park Curry, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, exh. cat., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts / Quantuck Lane Press (Richmond, VA, 2004), pp. 136, 137, fig. 4.29
  • 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. 411-412, cat. no. 440 A & B, reproduced in b&w, p.412

Exhibition History

  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/13/2023 - 03/25/2024

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