Unknown
Walking Stick: Whistler's Wand, 19th century
Bamboo, 116 cm (45 11/16 in.)
This long, narrow bamboo walking stick is approximately four feet long. It is carved at the top into a rounded, multilobed knob. It is reddish brown and highly polished. It tapers into a long, cone shaped metal point at the lower end.
Long Gallery
Commentary
James McNeill Whistler cut a distinctive figure in the art world, wearing jaunty hats and swinging a long, thin stick in his fingers as he walked. He presented this staff to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1886, entrusting her “with the wand...with the best and warmest wishes.” After his death in 1903, she displayed it on the third floor of her museum alongside the portrait of the artist by Harper Pennington.