Fumette

Fumette

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Whistler's mistress Heloise was nicknamed Fumette for her quick temper. Thought to be a gypsy, she worked as a milliner in the Latin Quarter of Paris and lived with the artist for two years. Her bohemian character is suggested here by hair worn loose, in defiance of convention, and crouching pose. Sympathetic to realist and naturalist ideas current in France, the artist avoided idealization or suggestions of universal meaning. Seymour Haden later recorded that Whistler etched the image before leaving for a tour of the Rhineland in mid-August 1868. After his October return, impressions were pulled for publication a month later in "Douze eau-fortes d'apres Nature" ("Twelve Etchings from Nature," known as the "French Set"). Evidently pleased with the print, the artist sent an impression to the Paris Salon of 1859.


Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.