1872
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Standing Woman Holding Up Her Dress (verso) is a 1872 by James McNeill Whistler, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman in a loose dress stands with her back slightly turned, one hand lifting the fabric. The lines are quick and light, like a sketch you’d do in a notebook. Whistler drew this on the back of another sheet—artists often reused paper to save money. That butterfly signature below her hand? It’s his little joke: a delicate mark for a fleeting moment. If you like how he makes simple lines feel alive, look up *sfumato*—it’s the soft, smoky way edges blur, something Whistler borrowed from older artists.
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.
Read the full account in the museum source.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom.
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