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Weary

1863
Not on view
Whistler's confidence as an etcher is seen in this portrait of Jo Hiffernan, his model, muse and companion in the 1860s. The artist's brother-in-law Seymour Haden taught him to etch and showed in works by Rembrandt. From the latter, Whistler learned to approach printmaking as an experimental process in which portions of an image could be left suggestively undeveloped. Here, Whistler used drypoint, scratching lines into the copper to throw up a burr that caught the ink and printed in a soft, evocative manner. A shadowy female head visible at lower right demonstrates that the artist changed his mind as he worked, turned the plate around, and began the design afresh. Jo's pose and sensuously unbound hair echo languid images of women beautiful women created by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti who lived near Whistler in Chelsea.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Weary
  • Artist: James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London)
  • Date: 1863
  • Medium: Drypoint, printed in black ink on tan Japan drum-mounted on ivory laid paper; fourth state of six (Glasgow);
  • Dimensions: Plate: 8 3/16 x 5 1/4 in. (20.8 x 13.3 cm)
    Sheet: 17 9/16 × 13 1/8 in. (44.6 × 33.4 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917
  • Object Number: 17.3.64
  • 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
Study, James McNeill Whistler American, Lithograph with scraping, on a prepared half-tint ground; only state (Chicago); printed in brown ink on grayish wove paper
Study
James McNeill Whistler
1879
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
1879
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
1887
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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