Weary

Weary

Dundee Art Galleries & Museum: 272-1987-341

Artist: Whistler, James Abbott McNeill

Date: 1863

State: 4/6

Size: 19.7 x 12.7 cm

Medium: Drypoint

Details Drypoint on buff coloured Asian paper. ‘Whistler 63’ at bottom left of print. Over thirty impressions are known.
Description Detailed information concerning the Whistler prints held in The Orchar Collection comes from the University of Glasgow’s excellent Whistler Etchings Project. (Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2012, on-line website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk). Considerable thanks are due to Professor MacDonald for allowing us to use their research in these entries.

The subject is Whistler’s mistress and muse Joanna Hiffernan (c.1843-after 1903). It seems likely the two met in 1860 and she modelled for him in paintings such as Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1962 (National Gallery of Art, Washington) which was painted at a studio in the Boulevard des Batignolles in Paris. She also modelled for Gustave Courbet at the same time and possibly had an affair with him whilst Whistler was in Valparaiso in 1866.

Hiffernan was a problematic figure for Whistler and the cause of arguments between the artist and Haden and Alphonse Legros. As an unmarried model her background was considered unsuitable to the Whistler family and when his mother visited from America in 1864 Hiffernan was moved out of his home at 7 Lindsey Row to another location for the duration. Whistler and Hiffernan finally split in 1866.
Catalogue Entry
  1. Edward G. Kennedy, The Etched Work of Whistler. New York, Grolier Club, 1910 (92)
  2. Howard Mansfield, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Chicago, Caxton Club, 1909 (92)
  3. Ralph Thomas, A Catalogue of the Etchings and Drypoints of J.A M. Whistler. London, John Russell Smith, 1874 (71)
  4. Sir Frederick Wedmore, Whistler’s Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue. London, Thibaudeau, 1886 (83)
  5. Whistler Etchings Project (93)
Other Collections UK)
  1. British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London
  2. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
  3. Hunterian Art Gallery Collections, University of Glasgow, Glasgow

See the Whistler Etchings Project for a list of impressions.
References
  1. Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists. Paris, Gründ, 2006
  2. Rodney K. Engen, Dictionary of Victorian Engravers, Print Publishers and Their Works. Cambridge, Chadwyck-Heley, 1979
  3. Kenneth M. Guichard, British Etchers 1850-1940. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1977
  4. Katharine A. Lochnan, The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1984
  5. Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995
  6. William Rough, ‘A cluster of butterflies: James Guthrie Orchar and his collection of Whistler etchings and drypoints’, Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, Volume 16, 2011-12

 

Cookie preferences