Design for a Decorated Fan

1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 207
Art and music are again associated in this tiny watercolor design of a girl dancing. Whistler was one of several artists who contributed to an elaborate wooden fan. Legible signatures include those of painters Millais, Lord Leighton, Alma Tadema, Burne-Jones, and the concert pianist Paderewski. The fan was decorated on both sides. A number of the signatures bear dates, suggesting that the fan was passed from hand to hand for decoration during the first half of 1895. While portrait busts dominate the decorations, Whistler's design incorporates an entire figure in a composition adapted to the rounded end of the fan rib (fig. 139.3). The artist made a pun upon the object decorated, for his little dancer holds a fan as well as embellishes one. The only other full figure visible in the photographs is Alma Tadema's woman seated upon a cushion (see fig. 139.1). The two women are symmetrically placed facing one another. Whistler's butterfly signature recalls the long-tailed insects that decorate The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, published in 1890, while his puckish little nude related to many drawings, paintings, and prints of dancing figures he created during the last decade of his career. The fan must have been a very special present for its lucky recipient. Whistler made a gift of his design to Freer in August 1899.