Whistler Begins Painting Commissioned by Freer

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Summary

While in Paris, France, artist James McNeill Whistler begins "Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Little Blue Girl," commissioned by Charles Lang Freer two years before. Whistler completes the painting after his wife's death in 1896. Freer does not receive the painting until after Whistler dies.

Subject

  • Freer, Charles Lang 1854-1919
  • Whistler, James McNeill 1834-1903
  • Freer Gallery of Art

Notes

  • In 1906 Charles Lang Freer donates his art collection to the Smithsonian Institution, and it later becomes the Freer Gallery of Art.
  • Lawton, Thomas and Linda Merrill. Freer: A Legacy of Art. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993, p. 42-46.

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, [email protected]

Category

Chronology of Smithsonian History

Date

  • Summer 1894
  • 1894

Topic

  • Art, American
  • Collectors and collecting
  • Painting

Place

Paris (France)

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