La Rétameuse

1858

Not on view

Whistler portrays a poor elderly woman in old-fashioned garb wearing a distinctive bonnet. "La Rétameuse" translates as tinker, a travelling repairer of tinlware and the subject has thrust what may be a shuttle, or large spoon, into the waist of her apron. Several of the etchings that the artist published in "Douze eau-fortes d'apres Nature" (Twelve Etchings from Nature) in 1858 center on French women who worked into old age. He presented them without sentiment or idealization but with an awareness that society's need for their skills was being swept away by industrialization. The sensitive detailed etching of this subject's irregular facial features contrasts with looser open lines elsewhere in the image, a handling that echoes Rembrandt whose prints Whistler knew from the collection of his brother-in-law Seymour Haden. This impression belonged to Thomas Winans, a Baltimore friend who financed Whistler's move to Paris in 1855; Winans kept the print in an album that descendants gave to the Museum.

Artwork Details

Title: La Rétameuse
Series/Portfolio: French Set ("Douze eau-fortes d'apres Nature" 1858) and Winans Scrapbook
Artist: James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London)
Date: 1858
Medium: Etching on tan chine on off-white wove paper (chine collé); second state of two (Glasgow)
Dimensions: Plate: 4 5/16 x 3 1/2 in. (11 x 8.9 cm)
Sheet: 5 3/16 × 4 7/16 in. (13.2 × 11.2 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Gift of Margaret C. Buell, Helen L. King, and Sybil A. Walk, 1970
Object Number: 1970.121.79
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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The artist's butterfly in an enlarged version with a forked tail

James McNeill Whistler

19th century

Reading, James McNeill Whistler American, Lithograph with scraping; printed in black ink on grayish chine mounted on ivory wove paper; fourth state of four (Chicago) — Reading
James McNeill Whistler
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Windsor (Memorial), James McNeill Whistler American, Drypoint; third state of four (Glasgow); printed in dark brown ink on ivory laid paper — Windsor (Memorial)
James McNeill Whistler
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Early Morning, James McNeill Whistler American, Lithotint with scraping, on a prepared half-tint ground, printed in black ink on cream wove paper; third state of four (Chicago) — Early Morning
James McNeill Whistler
1878

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