JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER
(1834-1903)
 

The Dancing Girl

c.1885 - 90

watercolour over pencil on off white wove paper

29.7 x 22.3 cm

inscribed: Butterfly monogram

on reverse in the hand of Harold Wright (Colnaghi’s Print Director): J McNeill Whistler / Model draping (The model probably / one of the Pettigrews) / (ex Collection of Miss R. Birnie Philip) / the Artist's Executrix & Sister-in-Law. / (Done during the Cheyne Walk period) 1896 or later.     

P.432

Originally dated c.1867 this was corrected to 1885-90 in the Tate catalogue 1994-5, thus confirming Harold Wright’s opinion given above.

Margaret Macdonald suggests that Wright was wrong about the Pettigrews, although his information came from Miss Birnie Philip, as she believes this drawing is earlier than 1890 when the Pettigrews began to model for Whistler. She also believes that the figure was drawn with such care as to suggest that it was originally intended to be a drawing rather than a watercolour. However, she later writes: 'The colour is magnificent, full of rich, glowing shades of russet and brown…The explicit painting of the nude figure, with the transparent drapes enhancing and not in any way concealing the body is unusual in Whistler’s work'.

EJ

PROVENANCE: In Whistler's studio at his death in 1903 and bequeathed to his sister-in-law, Miss R. Birnie Philip; P&D Colnaghi Ltd, October 1957; from whom purchased by Gallery, May 1958.

EXHIBITIONS: James McNeill Whistler (1834 –1903), Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, 1969, no104 as Tanzendes Mädchen; James McNeill Whistler, London, Tate Gallery, Paris, Musée d'Orsay, 1995, no.174; Songs on Stone. James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography, Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, 1998-99, no.95.

REFERENCES: R. Dorment & M.F. Macdonald, James McNeill Whistler, 1994, p.252, no.174, illus. no.174; M.F. Macdonald, James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné’, 1995, repr. p.397, no.1068; M. Tedeschi, Songs on Stone: James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography, Chicago, 1998, p.59, p.73, illus no.68; L. Lambourne, Victorian Painting, 1999, p.297, pl.357.     

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.