Object details
Object number
P25e13
Creator(s)
Anders Zorn
(Mora, 1860 - 1920, Mora)
Title
Morning Toilet (or With His Mother)
Date
1888
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
60 x 36 cm (23 5/8 x 14 3/16 in.)
Additional Dimensions
Frame: 75 x 50.8 x 3.2 cm (29 1/2 x 20 x 1 1/4 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Signed and dated (lower right): Zorn/88
Inscribed in pencil (back of frame, center): Mrs. John L. Gardner / 152 Beacon St. Boston
Two printed labels (adherred to the back of the frame, top, center and the bottom of the frame, center): Encadrements - Dorure / Cadres Chene, Poirier, Etc. / P. Cluzel / Couleurs Fin & Artist... / 33 Rue Fo...
Inscribed in pencil on a label (adherred to the back of the frame, top, right): For J. E. Chase / Boston
Provenance
Entered Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection by 1896.
Commentary
This painting is one of a group of bathing scenes that Swedish artist Anders Zorn painted in 1888. Zorn captures a single moment during a bright summer morning at the seashore. Executed outdoors on a small island near Stockholm, Zorn gives the impression that he has caught a spontaneous moment, although he almost certainly completed studies of the figures before creating this oil painting.
The painting likely entered Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection as a gift in early 1896, and in May of that year, Zorn wrote enthusiastically to her: “You ask me what I think of the Morning Toilet. Beautiful! Beautiful! Best thing I ever did!” The Zorn's sensually frank nudes were less popular in the United States than his society portraits. Morning Toilet is, therefore, a rarity in American collections, and at one point, this painting was even censored. Sometime after this painting arrived in Boston, the woman's pubic area was retouched to make the scene more modest—although the retouching has since been removed.
Bibliography
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), p. 18. (as "The Bathers")
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 200.
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), p. 297.
Michelle Facos. Swedish Impressionism’s Boston Champion: Anders Zorn and Isabella Stewart Gardner. Exploring Treasures in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum VI. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1993), pp. 7-11.
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, (Boston, 2003), p. 212.
Oliver Tostmann et al. Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2013), pp. 44-45, no. 12.
Gallery
Veronese Room
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