Sketch after "Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder"

Prints and Drawings

c. 1879

James McNeill Whistler
American, 1834-1903

Caricaturist Carlo Pellegrini, an admirer of Whistler, participated in London’s club life. He was member of the Beefsteak Club as well as the Arts Club, where one evening he drew an impromptu portrait of Whistler on a scrap of paper and gave it to Justin McCarthy, an Irish literary figure and politician. About two years later, Whistler presented Pellegrini with a freely drawn sketch after his oil painting Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder (1876–78; Frick Collection, New York), referring to the Italian-born artist in his dedication as “mon Eleve,” or “my pupil.”

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Title: Sketch after "Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder"
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1879
Medium: Brush and brown wash, with pen and brown ink, on off-white laid paper
Inscriptions: Signed recto, upper right, in brown ink and recto, center left, in image, in brown ink: [artist's butterfly monogram]; inscribed recto, right, in brown ink: "À mon Eleve Pellegrini" (written sideways); inscribed verso, center, in brown ink: "Dear Mr Williams--" (written sideways)
Dimensions: 18 × 11.3 cm (7 1/8 × 4 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Walter S. Brewster
Reference Number: 1933.295
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/14526/manifest.json

Andrew McLaren Young, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler (New Haven, 1980), pp. 117-18, under no. 203.
Richard Dorment and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, exh. cat. (London, 1994), pp. 153-54.
Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 1995), p. 261, no. 715 (ill.).
Susan Grace Galassi, “Rearranging Rosa Corder,” Apollo 154:476 (October 2001), pp. 26, 34n15.
Margaret F. MacDonald, “What is a Whistler?” James McNeill Whistler in Context: Essays from the Whistler Centenary Symposium, University of Glasgow, 2003, ed. Lee Glazer (Washington D.C., 2008), p. 12.
Meg Hausberg and Victoria Sancho Lobis. Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions. Department of Publishing of The Art Institute of Chicago, 2015 (https://publications.artic.edu/whistler/reader/linkedvisions ; Accessed August 25, 2015), Checklist para. 9, cat. 8.2 (ill.).

Chicago, Arts Club, “Portraits of Whistler and some Original Drawings by Whistler, Loaned by Walter S. Brewster,” January 19-February 7, 1923, cat. 13.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Summer Exhibitions, James McNeill Whistler - Paintings, Prints, Whistleriana, July 20-October 29, 1939, cat. 10.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Pastels, Watercolors, Etchings, Lithographs,” March 17-April 28, 1968, cat. 80 (ill.); Travelled to Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute.
Berlin, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen, “James McNeill Whistler, (1834-1903),” October 1-November 24, 1969, p. 86, cat. 73.
Providence, R.I., Brown University, “The Classical Spirit in American Portraiture,” January-April, 1976, p. 108 (ill.).
New York, The Frick Collection, “Whistler: Women and Fashion,” April 22-July 13, 2003, p. 125, cat. 116 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions,” June 20-September 27, 1015, Checklist para. 9, cat. 8.2 (ill.).

Given to Carlo Pellegrini (1838-1889), c. 1879. Possibly sold by Colnaghi, London, to Daniel H. Farr, Philadelphia, July 26, 1922 [MacDonald 1995]. Sold by Albert Roullier Gallery, Chicago, to Walter S. Brewster (1872-1954), Chicago, December 13, 1922 [invoice; stamp (Lugt 2651 a-b), recto, lower left, in blue]; given to the Art Institute, February 1933.

Cat. 20 Sketch after “Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder,” c. 1879

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Sketch after "Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder"

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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