1896
oil
panel
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Study of a Girl's Head and Shoulders is a 1896 oil by James McNeill Whistler, a American Impressionism work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
A young woman tilts her head slightly, her dark hair swept back and her pale skin glowing against a soft gray background. She wears a simple white blouse with a hint of lace at the collar. Whistler painted this on a small wood panel, not as a quick sketch but as a finished work. He often made these intimate portraits of people he knew, like Olga Caracciolo, a beauty from Dieppe. The brushstrokes are delicate, almost like a whisper. Look up *glazing* to see how thin layers of paint create that luminous effect.
In addition to large-scale portraits, James McNeill Whistler created small-scale likenesses, often on wood panel, as in this painting of a young sitter. A well-known beauty, Olga Caracciolo lived in Dieppe, France, likely where this work was executed, and later married the photographer Adolf de Meyer. Rather than a swift, abbreviated study for a larger composition, Whistler considered a work such as this to be a satisfying aesthetic whole. Indeed, small paintings serve as invitations for an intimate viewing experience and contemplation of the artist’s harmonies of color and form.
Baroness Olga de Meyer, by 1905 [lent to London 1905]. Annie Swan Coburn (Mrs. Lewis Larned, 1856–1932), Chicago, by 1932; bequeathed to her friend Walter Stanton Brewster (1872–1954), Chicago, 1932 [ Last Will and Testament and Letters Testamentary of Annie S. Coburn, Dated August 9, 1932 , Article 3 (p), as Girl’s Head ]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.
London, International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers, The New Gallery, Regent Street, Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late James McNeill Whistler , Feb. 22-Apr. 15, 1905, cat. 58, as Study of a Girl’s Head and Shoulders . Art Institute of Chicago, Summer Exhibitions , July 20–Oct. 29, 1939, cat. 5. Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950 , Oct. 1, 1959–Jan. 10, 1960, no cat. [downloadable checklist available].
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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