Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Study for "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle"
James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903)
1872–73
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 28.6 × 21 cm (11 1/4 × 8 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
In 1872, James McNeill Whistler began a large-scale portrait of Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who lived near the artist in London. Whistler executed several studies, including this one, which strongly resembles the finished painting. Carlyle endured numerous sittings, as Whistler labored over the portrait with particular emphasis on the aesthetics of the sitter’s black coat. Concerned with harmonious arrangements of color and form, the artist was less interested in depicting the details of Carlyle’s face. The composition is strikingly similar to Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1871; Musée d’Orsay), also known as Whistler’s Mother.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
