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Watercolor of a large tan field with people and buildings in the background

The foreground of this image is a large yellow-tan field, with shading suggesting hills and grass. A few small groups of people are scattered in on the right side of the field and on its back perimeter. One figure on the right has a round red shape suggesting a parasol. On a background of low, broad hills, we can see roofs of buildings, including the black steeple of what is presumably a church in the middle. The figures and landscape in this work are not presented descriptively; their features are suggested by shape and color but not rendered in detail.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1917.5
People
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
Title
Sunday at Domburg
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1900
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/305939

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Transparent and opaque watercolor on off-white Japanese paper
Dimensions
15 × 24.8 cm (5 7/8 × 9 3/4 in.)
frame: 40.2 × 50.2 × 7.5 cm (15 13/16 × 19 3/4 × 2 15/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: Watercolor, l.l. center, butterfly monogram
  • exhibition label: back of frame, paper: no. 69
  • exhibition label: back of frame, paper: no. L. 78.90, catalogue no. 83
  • exhibition label: 1994-1995, back of frame, paper: no. 155 1994 - 95
  • exhibition label: back of frame, paper: no. 155
  • exhibition label: back of frame, paper: [printed address label]
  • exhibition label: back of frame, paper: No. 155; Dex. ID # 30.
  • inscription: back of frame, watercolor: [noted in conservation file:] 1048 - 1073

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Bequest of the artist to his sister-in-law and executor Rosalind Birnie Philip, 1903; her gift to E. F. J. Deprez, 1905; sold after his death by Christie's, London, June 18, 1916; purchased at that sale by Colnaghi and Knoedler; sold by them to Steven C. Clark in New York, NY, October 1916; returned by him to Knoedler, February 1917; sold by them to Edward D. Bettens, February 1917.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Edward D. Bettens to the Louise E. Bettens Fund
Accession Year
1917
Object Number
1917.5
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, J. B. Lippincott/W. Heinemann (Philadelphia, PA and London, England, 1908), vol. II, p. 258
  • Edward Detraz Bettens, Painter and Patron, [Privately printed] (New York, NY, 1918), p. 26, reproduced f. 22
  • Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, J. B. Lippincott and Co. (Philadelphia, PA, 1921), pp. 191 - 192
  • Albert E. Gallatin, American Water-Colourists, E. P. Dutton & Co. (New York, NY, 1922), p. xii, reproduced
  • Exhibition of Oils, Water-colors, Drawings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1934), no. 34
  • Alan Burroughs, A History of American Watercolor Painting, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY, 1942), no. 74
  • James W. Lane, Whistler, Crown Publishers Inc. (New York, NY, 1942), p. 63, reproduced
  • Betsy G. Fryberger, Whistler: Themes and Variations, exh. cat., Stanford University Museum of Art (Stanford, CA, 1978), p. 76, no. 83, reproduced
  • Anne Koval, Whistler in his Time, Tate Publishing (London, England, 1994), no. 155, reproduced in color
  • Richard Dorment and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1995), pg. 236, cat. 155, repro.
  • Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1995), pp. 580 - 581, no. 1613, reproduced
  • J. F. Heijbroek and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, exh. cat., Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1997), reproduced as color plate XXVII, fig. 153, pp. 127 - 128
  • Michael Conforti, James A. Ganz, and Neil Harris, The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings, exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute/Yale University Press (Williamstown, MA, 2006), p. 133 and repr. in color as fig. 111
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 437, cat. 464, ill.
  • Joachim Homann, Margaret Morgan Grasselli, and Miriam Stewart, ed., American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2023), repr. as pl. 6 on p. 75

Exhibition History

  • Exhibition of Oils, Water-colors, Drawings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 04/24/1934 - 05/13/1934
  • A History of American Watercolor Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 01/27/1942 - 02/25/1942
  • [Whistler Exhibition], Lyman Allen Museum, New London, 05/01/1949 - 06/13/1949
  • American Paintings from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Symphony Hall, Boston, 02/21/1958 - 03/15/1958
  • James McNeill Whistler, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 01/12/1968 - 02/25/1968; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, 03/17/1968 - 04/28/1968
  • James McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903), Nationalgalerie Berlin, 10/04/1969 - 11/27/1969
  • Whistler: Theme and Variations, Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, 01/16/1978 - 02/26/1978; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, 03/11/1978 - 04/16/1978; Stanford University Museum of Art, 05/02/1978 - 06/18/1978
  • Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, 08/27/1978 - 10/08/1978
  • James McNeill Whistler, Tate Britain, London, 10/13/1994 - 01/08/1995; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 02/06/1995 - 04/30/1995; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 05/28/1995 - 08/20/1995
  • Whistler and Holland, Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 08/16/1997 - 11/09/1997
  • American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 05/20/2023 - 08/13/2023

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu