A green meadow, with a house and trees in the distance; a child stands in the foreground, with another figure beyond. Signed with the butterfly at lower left.
From 1899 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Goupil et Cie, London in 1899 [2]
From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]
Notes:
[1] Undated folder sheet note, Object file. Also see Original Whistler List, Paintings, pg. 17, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.
[2] See note 1.
[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.
1. Glazer, Jacobson, McCarthy, Roeder, wall label, 2019: In 1888 Whistler abandoned his mistress Maud Franklin and married Beatrice Godwin, the widow of his friend, architect E. W. Godwin. The couple honeymooned in France, where the artist purchased fabric-covered boards that bear the stamp of art supplier E. Mary et Fils in Paris. While the boards were likely constructed for oil painting, Whistler experimented by using them for watercolor. He painted this landscape, and at least four others on boards, while the newlyweds toured the Loire Valley.
Selected Published References
1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 195 During the summer of 1888 Whistler spent time in the Touraine region of the Loire Valley, making a number of etchings which depict both genre scenes and tourist attractions. Just south of Tours, Beaulieu-les-Loches is on the right bank of the Indre River, only about a mile from Loches, where many of the etchings were made. Whistler painted what appears to be a country house in the vicinity. The child in the foreground is echoed by a tiny figure behind him, making a formal transition from the vast green meadow to the house in the distance. The composition began with dark clouds which were scraped away before Whistler painted the pinkish-gray sky. The use of a canvas support for a watercolor is unusual in Whistler's work.
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