Cameo, No. 1 (Mother and Child) (c. 1890–93): Art, History and Details

Cameo, No. 1 (Mother and Child) (c. 1890–93) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Among a group of etchings Whistler made from a nude or partly draped model around 1890 was a pair entitled Cameo No. 1 and Cameo No. 2, showing a young mother playing with her child. Here, the mother leans over the child in an enclosed, protective gesture, perhaps whispering a lullaby. Whistler's treatment of the figure's robe, a semi-classical design based on Roman dress, captured the translucent qualities of the drapery which partly reveals and partly conceals the form beneath. Of this group, the artist's favorite etching was Cameo No. 1, and in 1893 he chose it to be exhibited among a selection of his prints at the Chicago World's Fair. American collectors, however, found Cameo No. 1 too risqué, and the artist was told it was unsalable because of "the thinness of the drapery."

Object facts

• Title: Cameo, No. 1 (Mother and Child)
• Date: c. 1890–93
• Creator attribution: James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903)
• Culture: America
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1923.29

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph King

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.