Pink Note–Shelling Peas1882-1884
An open door at the back of a kitchen frames a woman sitting in a garden; signed with the butterfly at left, on tablecloth. More about this work
About this work
An open door at the back of a kitchen frames a woman sitting in a garden; signed with the butterfly at left, on tablecloth.
Text from the National Museum of Asian Art.
How it was made
- Watercolour
- Pigment in gum arabic, thinned with water and laid in transparent washes. Nothing white is painted: the light is the paper showing through.
James McNeill Whistler
American, 1834–1903 · Born in Lowell, Massachusetts; died in London.
Whistler spent part of his boyhood in Russia, left West Point without graduating and trained as a painter in Paris before settling in London in 1859. He held that a picture was an arrangement of colour and form, and named his works symphonies, harmonies and nocturnes; a hostile review of one nocturne led to his 1878 libel suit against John Ruskin. He was equally committed to etching, and in his Venice plates of 1879–80 he left films of ink on the copper to suggest water and dusk.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The National Museum of Asian Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- F1902.166a-c
- Credit
- Courtesy of the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- National Museum of Asian Art
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
Report this work
More by James McNeill Whistler
All their works
Close in colour
