James McNeill Whistler

Mother and child

Date c.1885-1886
Materials Pencil on paper laid down on card
Dimensions 15.5 cm x 9.7 cm
Marks Signed with a butterfly at the bottom left; signed on verso: "Whistler"; inscribed [possibly by Beatrix Godwin, later Mrs Whistler] on verso: "Mother and Child".
Further information GLAHA 46103.
Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonne, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995 (1062).

Note Although this drawing is entitled Mother and Child, it was probably Beatrix and not Whistler who gave it that name, and it actually shows Rose Pettigrew and her niece. However, the subject of a mother with her child was a popular one in Victorian times and would have appealed to the public when it was exhibited. Notice how Whistler used softer lines to draw the facial features, perhaps suggesting the warmth and tenderness of a mother and child relationship. He used harder lines to indicate the woman’s hair, which is tied in a bun, and the girl’s dress and pinafore. Gaze is important in this picture. Look how the woman looks attentively on the child. The viewer in turn is drawn into the picture through the child who appears to look out of the picture space directly at us. Subject matter appears to have more importance here than in other works.