The Trial Sermon, Joanna Douglas at Her Desk (1862): Art, History and Details

The Trial Sermon, Joanna Douglas at Her Desk (1862) 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:

One of only a handful of illustrations created by American artist James McNeill Whistler, this image accompanied an anonymously published romantic, moralizing short story entitled “The Trial Sermon” that appeared in the 1862 issue of Good Words, a British periodical. Like many of Whistler’s paintings, his illustrations avoid narrative elements; he focused instead on character sketches, allowing him to explore the visual and technical possibilities of his medium. Lost in thought, the woman in the picture communicates very little of her interior life. Instead, Whistler’s rendering of the figure matches that of her surroundings, turning her into an aesthetic object.

Object facts

• Title: The Trial Sermon, Joanna Douglas at Her Desk
• Date: 1862
• Creator attribution: James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903)
• Culture: America
• Type: Print
• Technique: wood engraving and letterpress
• Dimensions: Image: 15.3 x 11.5 cm (6 x 4 1/2 in.); Sheet: 24.6 x 17.7 cm (9 11/16 x 6 15/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Wood engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1941.135

Collection credit

Gift of Henry Sayles Francis

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.