Description

By the mid-1860s, the London-based, American artist James McNeill Whistler was increasingly fascinated with the aesthetics of Asian art. In The Artist in His Studio, Whistler stares out at the viewer with palette and paintbrush in hand, surrounded by works from his collection: three Japanese scrolls hang on the wall and Chinese porcelain adorns shelves on the left. He applied thin layers of paint in muted tones to evoke the flattened appearance of Japanese woodblock prints. The composition also recalls the work of the Spanish Baroque painter Diego Velázquez, who likewise included a self-portrait at his easel in Las Meninas (1656, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid). Whistler harmonized Western and Eastern artistic elements, placing himself at the center of such an enterprise.

Provenance

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), 1865/66; Dr. William McNeill Whistler (1836–1900), London, by 1886 [list by James McNeill Whistler, 1886, GUL BP II 8/7, copy in curatorial object file]; consigned to Goupil Gallery, London, December 1896 [letter from James McNeill Whistler to Mrs. William Whistler, undated (December 1896), GUW 07023; letter from James McNeill Whistler to Dr. William Whistler, dated January 2, 1897, GUW 07025]; sold to Douglas William Freshfield (1845–1934), London, by October 1897 [letter from James McNeill Whistler to David Croal Thomson, October 1897, GUW 08443]; with Brown & Phillips, London, 1911; sold to P. & D. Colnaghi and Obach, London, by August 1911 [according to Young, MacDonald, Spencer, and Miles 1980]; partial share sold to M. Knoedler & Co., New York, August 24, 1911 [M. Knoedler & Co. Painting Stock Book 5: 8800-12652, April 1899–December 1911, inv. no. 12505, copy in curatorial object file]; probably consigned to Henry Reinhardt Galleries, New York and Chicago, September 1911 [according to American Art News November 25, 1911, and Young, MacDonald, Spencer, and Miles 1980; exhibited New York 1911]; sold to the Friends of American Art, Chicago, by December 1911 [according to American Art News December 23, 1911]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1912.