Japanese Woman Painting a Fan (recto)
c. 1872
- Medium
- black chalk and pastel
- Dimensions
- 27.9 × 17.6 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-215150
In 1872 Whistler was commissioned to contribute two designs to complete the decorative scheme of 35 monumental portrait mosaics installed in the south court of the South Kensington Museum in London (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). A celebration of the arts, the mosaics represented male artists throughout history; Whistler’s two designs attempted to correct the gender imbalance. His subjects were a woman at a spindle and a Japanese woman painting a fan. Here, a brush is poised in the figure’s right hand—notice the sharp diagonal line above the orange butterfly—as she pauses to contemplate…
Provenance
Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection, 1933.222.a
Registry history
- c. 1872 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — drawings
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