• Resting in Bed
  • Resting in Bed

Resting in Bed

A woman reading in bed, a fireplace in the background decorated with bric-a-brac, including folding fans; unsigned.
Maker nationality and date
1834-1903
Date(s)
1883-1884
Medium
Watercolor on paper
Dimension(s)
H x W: 17 x 24 cm (6 11/16 x 9 7/16 in)
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Object Number
F1907.172a-c
Alternate title
Maud in bed in 448 Fulham Road
Production location
England, London
Theme
Interior; Figure
Signature(s)
Unsigned.
Provenance
Selected Curatorial Remarks

1. Glazer, Jacobson, McCarthy, Roeder, wall label, 2019:
Whistler's domestic interiors often convey a sense of intimacy or capture a private moment. An early work in this vein is the large oil painting of his half-sister (playing a hidden piano), his niece, and a family friend. Twenty years later he returned to the theme in his watercolors.

He frequently depicted his model and longtime companion Maud Franklin, recognizable by her auburn hair, in quiet moments at home. Several compositions contain suggestions of an unseen person – perhaps the artist himself – by including a hat on the bed or an empty chair.

2. Katherine Roeder, 2018:
Dating is contemporaneous with JMW's Milly Finch portraits. As Margaret MacDonald points out, JMW painted Milly Finch during the same period that Maud Franklin was convalescing in bed.

Selected Published References
1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 198
Resting in Bed is seductively painted, and Whistler created a sexually charged image of artist and mistress by using much the same vocabulary that informs Pink Note: The Novelette [F1902.158]. At the far end of the room, a male presence is declared by a black silk top hat. The hat is entangled in the black and pink folds of an evening cape, and we may safely presume a romantic attachment between the woman in bed and the invisible male symbolized by the hat. Again, fans and a picture on the mantle are related by color and suggest artistic occupants, implying that Whistler's watercolor is based upon his relationship with his mistress Maud Franklin. Several related images testify to Whistler's fondness for the general composition [Girl Reading in Bed, ink. Art Institute of Chicago]. However, variations in the details alter the meaning of each work. By changing the setting to an outdoor hammock, Whistler captured an atmosphere of pleasant idleness [Maud Reading in a Hammock, watercolor. Fogg Art Museum, Harvard]. Another watercolor is given a gently domestic turn with the substitution of a coffee pot, napkin, and plate for the domino and silk hat [The Convalescent, fig. 10 from The Studio Whistler Portfolio (London, 1905), Freer Archive]. In 1896 Whistler used a reversed and elaborated variant of the composition to depict his dying wife Beatrix, lying by her balcony at the Savoy Hotel in London [By the Balcony, lithograph, F1905.212].
Catalogue Raisonne number
M901
MacDonald Catalogue number
Previous owner(s)
Obach & Co. (C.L. Freer source) (1884-1911)
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)
CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)
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