James McNeill Whistler At the Piano

Please note that detail and cropped images may not be used without express permission from the Taft Museum.
Date 1859
Materials Oil on canvas
Dimensions 67.0 cm x 90.5 cm
Marks Signed: “Whistler” (or possibly: J. Whistler”)
Further information Collection Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio. www.taftmuseum.org
Andrew McLaren Young, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1980 (24, plate 22).

Note This painting shows Whistler’s half-sister Deborah playing a piano that belonged to her father Major George Washington Whistler, who died in 1849. Although she and her daughter Annie are dressed in traditional mourning colours and the overall mood is rather sombre, Whistler did not connect the title of this painting to his family situation. Neither is the painting sentimental, in contrast to typical Victorian mother and child domestic scenes. Notice how Whistler was more interested in balancing the forms of Deborah and Annie. Annie’s face was left undefined. Look at how Whistler used the pictures on the wall and the lines of dado, skirting board and piano to create a sense of patterning. The colours are simple and bold. However, there is subtlety too. Look how Whistler perfectly suggested the gleam of the dish on the left with a few dabs of paint.