Churchyard

Object Details

• Artist

  James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

• Edition/State

  2, 1

• Label

  Founded as an Augustinian priory in 1123, St. Bartholomew’s numbered among the three oldest churches in London. A preservation society photographed its churchyard a decade before Whistler created his lithograph. Parts of the building occasionally served as commercial enterprises, including a blacksmith’s shop and a printing shop. Whistler’s image turned away from the church itself to capture the Cloth Fair’s adjacent seventeenth-century buildings, where weavers and cloth merchants had been working for several centuries. Caught in shifting light and shadow, tilted tombstones convey the sense of time past and passing.

  Whistler lithographs are identified by "C." numbers as described in The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998). This print is C.21, single state, one of two impressions. See also F1906.140.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change (November 18, 2023 to May 4, 2024)

  Lithographs and Lithotints by Whistler (March 23, 1925 to March 24, 1930)

  Special Exhibition, Whistler Etchings and Lithographs (January 14, 1924 to February 18, 1924)

• Origin

  United States

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Print

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

  There are restrictions for re-using this media. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

  The information presented on this website may be revised and updated at any time as ongoing research progresses or as otherwise warranted. Pending any such revisions and updates, information on this site may be incomplete or inaccurate or may contain typographical errors. Neither the Smithsonian nor its regents, officers, employees, or agents make any representations about the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or timeliness of the information on the site. Use this site and the information provided on it subject to your own judgment. The National Museum of Asian Art welcomes information that would augment or clarify the ownership history of objects in their collections.

Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1880s

• Name

  Whistler, James McNeill

• Place

  United States

• Topic

  Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Architecture, American Art, Store front

• Culture

  Americans

• Object Type

  Prints