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.

Artwork Details

Title: La Rétameuse
Series/Portfolio: French Set ("Douze eau-fortes d'apres Nature" 1858)
Artist: James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London)
Date: 1858
Medium: Etching, printed in black ink on buff (darkened) chine on off-white wove (chine collé); second state of two (Glasgow)
Dimensions: plate: 4 3/8 x 3 1/2 in. (11.1 x 8.9 cm)
sheet: 10 3/4 x 9 5/16 in. (27.3 x 23.7 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Gift of William Loring Andrews, 1883, transferred from the Library
Object Number: 83.1.33
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By James McNeill Whistler

In the same medium

From the same time and place

Nocturne (Nocturne: The Thames at Battersea), James McNeill Whistler American, Lithotint with scraping on a prepared half-tint ground, printed in soft gray-black ink on pale blue laid chine mounted on ivory wove plate paper; second state of two (Chicago) — Nocturne (Nocturne: The Thames at Battersea)
James McNeill Whistler
1878

Powder Horn, Horn (cow), lead, American — Powder Horn
American
18th century

Peasant Pushing A Wheelbarrow, Jean-François Millet French, Etching printed in brown/black ink on chine collé; first state of four — Peasant Pushing A Wheelbarrow
Jean-François Millet
1855

The Yellow Room, James McNeill Whistler American, Watercolor and gouache on paperboard, American — The Yellow Room
James McNeill Whistler
ca. 1883–84

Figured flask, Blown-molded glass, American — Figured flask
American
1820–30

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