UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Model Stooping

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.505)
Number: 362
Date: 1887/1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 135 x 97 mm
Signed: butterfly at left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 1
Catalogues: K.342; M.340
Impressions taken from this plate  (1)

KEYWORD

model, nude, woman.

TITLE

Variations on the title are as follows:


'Stooping Figure' (1890/1891, Whistler). 2
'Model Stooping' (1898, Wunderlich's). 3
'The Model Stooping' (1900, Caxton Club). 4
'Nude figure stooping' (1900, Wunderlich's). 5
'Model Stooping' (1902, Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932)). 6
'Nude Model Stooping' (2010, Whistler Etching Project).


'Nude Model Stooping' is a title combining elements of earlier titles by Whistler and other cataloguers, and distinguished this subject from other studies of models and figures.

2: List, [1890/1891] GUW #13236.

3: New York 1898 (cat. no. 284).

4: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. E277).

5: Wunderlich's to Whistler, 6 April 1900, GUW #07322.

6: Kennedy 1902 (cat. no. 303).

DESCRIPTION

A nude young woman, turning to the left, stoops down low, as if picking up flowers with both hands. There is shading in the background, indicating a curtain.

SITTER

Not identified.

DISCUSSION

The theme of a nude or semi-nude figure tending flowers reappears in Whistler's work at intervals from the 1860s on. The figure is reminiscent of the central figure in The White Symphony: Three Girls [y087] and related pastel studies such as The Lily [m0364], dating from the late 1860s and 1870s. The etching Tillie: A Model [113], dating from the early 1870s, is related to the left hand figure in the same oil. The White Symphony: Three Girls was exhibited at the RBA in the winter of 1887-1988 (cat. no. 352), and this may have been when Whistler made further studies such as The Three Girls [m1163]. Later developments of the pose are seen in a chalk drawing, A crouching nude tending a flowering plant [m1389] and watercolour, Blue and Gold - The Rose Azalea [m1392].