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Letter to William Heinemann with corrections for Eden versus Whistler: The Baronet and the Butterfly. A Valentine with a Verdict

A work made of pen and brownish black ink, with graphite, on cream laid paper and etching in blue (recto); pen and brownish black ink and graphite on cream laid paper (verso).
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of pen and brownish black ink, with graphite, on cream laid paper and etching in blue (recto); pen and brownish black ink and graphite on cream laid paper (verso).

Date:

October 18, 1898

Artist:

James McNeill Whistler
American, 1834-1903

About this artwork

Whistler disseminated ideas about art in his “Ten O’Clock” lecture and the pamphlets that recorded it as well as The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, a compendium of his newspaper correspondence issued in book form in 1890. Eight years later he enlisted William Heinemann, publisher of the Gentle Art, to produce a booklet to broadcast—and immortalize—the favorable outcome of Whistler’s legal case against Sir William Eden, which vindicated his position that artists had the right to control their own work. Whistler’s scrawled corrections on this sheet of stationery from a Paris hotel are related to that publication.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

James McNeill Whistler

Title

Letter to William Heinemann with corrections for Eden versus Whistler: The Baronet and the Butterfly. A Valentine with a Verdict

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.

Written 1898

Medium

Pen and brownish black ink, with graphite, on cream laid paper and etching in blue (recto); pen and brownish black ink and graphite on cream laid paper (verso)

Dimensions

27.2 × 21.5 cm (10 3/4 × 8 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. J. Sanford Otis

Reference Number

1978.581b

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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https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/222000/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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