A Fire at Pomfret F1905.333a-b: Curatorial Analysis | Whistler in Watercolor

Maker nationality and date: 1834-1903

Date(s): 1849

Medium: Watercolor over graphite on paper

Dimension(s): H x W: 12.8 x 19.6 cm (5 1/16 x 7 11/16 in)

Credit Line: Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Object Number: F1905.333a-b

Alternate title: School House on Fire

Production location: United States, Connecticut, Pomfret

Theme: Juvenalia

Signature(s): Unsigned.

Inscription(s): Verso: Sketch at Pomfret by James W. (unknown hand)

Provenance: To 1905
Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London, to 1905 [1]

From 1905 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Thomas Robert Way in 1905 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] According to Curatorial Remark 1 in the object record. See also, Whistler Reserved List, R. 5826, as well as Original Whistler List of Paintings, etc., Transferred to Smithsonian Institution, January 3, 1921, pg. 2, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See note 1. According to Curatorial Remark 3, G.D. Guest, 1927, the registration number for this object was changed to correspond with the year of purchase.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Exhibition History: William Marchant & Co., Untitled Exhibition, William Marchant & Co., 1903
International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, February 22 to April 15, 1905

Selected Curatorial Remarks: 1. On verso: Building plan
2. Katherine Roeder, 2018:
After Whistler's father's death in 1848, his mother and the family returned to the United States from Russia. There, Whistler painted A Fire at Pomfret while he was a student at the Pomfret Academy in Connecticut. The composition, rendered in pencil and watercolor, depicts a five-man bucket brigade attempting to douse a rooftop fire. Sketchy and incomplete, the watercolor succeeds in showing figures in motion and implying a sense of immediacy.

Selected Published References: 1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 164
In this early drawing of young men putting out a fire, Whistler concerned himself with volumes and shadows to a degree that entirely disappeared in his mature work. The fragment of a building plan, not necessarily drawn by Whistler, appears on the verso.

Catalogue Raisonne number: M28
MacDonald Catalogue number

Previous owner(s): Thomas Robert Way (C.L. Freer source) (1861-1913)
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

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A Fire at Pomfret

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