James McNeill Whistler

Family in an archway

Date c. 1901
Materials Pencil, pen and brown ink on wove paper
Dimensions 12.4 cm x 8.2 cm
Marks Signed with a butterfly at the upper right
Further information GLAHA 46304.
Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonne, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995 (1677).

Note This is a fascinating drawing, and is full of detail. The centre is very dark with heavy cross-hatched line, but we can make out the figures of a man in a hat smoking a pipe and a younger woman holding a baby. Can you also see a jug, basin and shelving in the interior? Notice how Whistler used the shape of the doorway to frame the central figures, a favourite device especially in his prints, e.g. La Vieille aux Loques. Look at the left hand side of the picture and you will see the shadowy figure of a second woman whom the figures in the interior appear to be looking out at. She has only been drawn in lightly with pencil. You can see that Whistler had also just begun to fill in the shape of her sleeve with ink wash. This figure is balanced by his butterfly signature at the top right of the picture.

Related works GLAHA 46706.