Les Côtes à Dieppe

Maker(s)
Artist: James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Historical period(s)
1857
Medium
Pencil on off-white wove paper
Dimensions
H x W: 10.5 x 18.7 cm (4 1/8 x 7 3/8 in)
Geography
United States
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F1898.185
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Drawing
Type

Drawing

Keywords
landscape, United States
Provenance

Seymour Haden (1818-1910), London [1]

To 1898
H. Wunderlich & Co., New York to 1898 [2]

From 1898 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from H. Wunderlich & Co., through Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938), in November 1898 [3]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [4]

Notes:

[1] See Original Whistler List, Haden Collection Drawings, pg. 2, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See Voucher No. 20, November 1898, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[3] See note 2.

[4] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Previous Owner(s)

Francis Seymour Haden 1818-1910
Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919
H. Wunderlich & Co. (C.L. Freer source) 1874-1912

Label

Once a significant port on the west coast of France, Dieppe had become a resort town popular with English tourists by the mid-19th century. It offered visitors a lengthy promenade, warm baths, sea bathing, golf links and a casino.  Whistler depicted the promenade with its large clock that proclaimed the value of middle-class leisure time. He also included the lofty chalk cliffs and the sea beyond. The tightly drawn figures with highly contrasted pencil strokes are similarly distributed in this and A group of figures on an esplanade (F1898.186), suggesting the studio nature of the compositions.  Whistler visited Dieppe many times as he traveled back and forth between Paris and London.

Published References
  • Margaret F. MacDonald. James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolours : A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, 1995. .
  • David Park Curry. James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art. Washington and New York, 1984. p. 213, pl. 154.
Collection Area(s)
American Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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