Object details
Accession number
P25e2
Primary Creator
James McNeill Whistler
(Lowell, Massachusetts, 1834 - 1903, London, England)
Full title
Lapis Lazuli
Creation Date
1885-1886
Provenance
Remained with the artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) before the 1890s.
Included by James McNeill Whistler in a list of pastels to be sent to David Croal Thomson (1855-1930), a London dealer, for £130, September 1891.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from James McNeill Whistler, Paris for 120 guineas on 25 June 1895.
Marks
Signed (on the back of the couch): Whistler's butterfly signature
Dimensions
13 x 26 cm (5 1/8 x 10 1/4 in.)
Display Media
Chalk and pastel on brown paper
Web Commentary
Isabella Stewart Gardner kept meticulous records of many of her acquisitions. In keeping with this legacy, object information is continually being reviewed, updated, and enriched in order to give greater access to the collection.
Permanent Gallery Location
Veronese Room
Bibliography
James McNeill Whistler. 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes,' Second Series. Exh. cat. (London: Dowdeswell Gallery, 1886), no. 42. (entitled "Violet and Blue")
Art Exhibition: Mrs. John L. Gardner, 152 Beacon St., Boston. Exh. cat. (Boston, 1899), p. 8, no. 22. (entitled "Pastel")
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), p. 18. (entitled "Pastel")
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), p. 103. (entitled "Lapis-lazuli")
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), p. 419. (entitled "Lapis Lazuli")
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 201. (entitled "Lapis Lazuli")
“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 19 (6 Jan. 1963), p. 1. (excerpting Morris Carter, pp. 103-05)
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 292-93, ill. (entitled "Lapis Lazuli")
Deborah Gribbon. "Mrs. Gardner's Modern Art" in James Thomas Herbert Baily (ed.). The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors, "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum" (London, 1978), p. 15. (entitled "Lapis Lazuli")
Deborah Gribbon. "Whistler's Sketch of an Unfinished Symphony." Fenway Court (1980), p. 26. (entitled "Lapis Lazuli")
Margaret MacDonald. James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raissonné (London, 1995), pp. 397-98, no. 1070. (entitled "Blue and Violet. Lapis Lazuli"; as 1885-1886)
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), p. 201, ill. (entitled "Lapis Lazuli"; as 1885-1886)
Rights and reproductions
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