The Embroidered Curtain

1889

Not on view

Whistler and his new wife Beatrice traveled to Amsterdam in late August 1889, intending a brief stay, but remained for two months. Seventeenth-century buildings on the Palmgracht, near the couple’s hotel, are here used to create a moody, densely patterned image that recalls the artist’s finest Venetian etchings and pays tribute to Rembrandt. The curtain mentioned in the title was likely made of lace, but the artist used the word "embroidered" to call attention to his fascination with decorative patterning, supported here by the framework of the architecture. Women and children who stand in doorways and on the sidewalk by the canal melt into their surrounds.

Artwork Details

Title: The Embroidered Curtain
Artist: James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London)
Date: 1889
Medium: Etching and drypoint, printed in dark brown ink on fine ivory laid paper; sixth state of ten (Glasgow)
Dimensions: Plate: 9 5/16 × 6 1/4 in. (23.7 × 15.9 cm)
Sheet: 9 5/16 × 6 1/4 in. (23.7 × 15.9 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917
Object Number: 17.3.151
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By James McNeill Whistler

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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
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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