Seaside (July: Specimen of a Portrait) (1878): Art, History and Details

Seaside (July: Specimen of a Portrait) (1878) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is James Tissot (French, 1836–1902).

The work and its context

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

This painting depicts a woman reclining upon an upholstered couch on a summer day while light filters through a partially closed awning that provides a glimpse of a beach in the background. James Tissot’s mature works from this time were more likely to convey a mood—here of a languid summer afternoon—than a specific narrative. The model for this painting was Kathleen Newton, born Kathleen Ashburnham Kelly (1854–1882), the artist’s lover from 1876 until her untimely death from tuberculosis at the age of 28.

Object facts

• Title: Seaside (July: Specimen of a Portrait)
• Date: 1878
• Creator attribution: James Tissot (French, 1836–1902)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 112.1 x 85.4 x 6.4 cm (44 1/8 x 33 5/8 x 2 1/2 in.); Unframed: 87.5 x 61 cm (34 7/16 x 24 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1980.288

A detail from the museum

From 1869 to 1876, under the pseudonym Coïdé, James Tissot published political cartoons in the British weekly magazine Vanity Fair, causing circulation to skyrocket.

Collection credit

Bequest of Noah L. Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Grosvenor Gallery. Second Notice." The Magazine of Art 1 (1878): 81-82.
• Laver, James. "Vulgar Society"; The Romantic Career of James Tissot, 1836-1902. London, United Kingdom: Constable & co., ltd, 1936.
• "Salerooms." The Connoisseur 190 (September 1975): 68-69.

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.