Japanese Woman Painting a Fan (recto); Standing Woman Holding Up Her Dress (verso) (c. 1872): Art, History and Details

Japanese Woman Painting a Fan (recto); Standing Woman Holding Up Her Dress (verso) (c. 1872) 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:

After being expelled from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Whistler made his way to Europe, where he pursued the life of the artist-bohemian, first in Paris, and then in London. Whistler was a pioneer in appreciating the effects of Japanese prints, and his art is characterized by an Asian subtlety and delicacy. Whistler signed his work with a monogram representing a butterfly, which appears just below the hand of the model in this drawing.

Object facts

• Title: Japanese Woman Painting a Fan (recto); Standing Woman Holding Up Her Dress (verso)
• Date: c. 1872
• Creator attribution: James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903)
• Culture: America
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk and pastel
• Dimensions: Sheet: 27.9 x 17.6 cm (11 x 6 15/16 in.); Secondary Support: 38.5 x 28.9 cm (15 3/16 x 11 3/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - American 19th Century
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1933.222

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Henry A. Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "The Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 25, no. 6, pt. 2 (June 1938): 124-131

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.