Bibi Lalouette

Bibi Lalouette

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This curly-haired little boy sitting on the edge of a bed comes from a series of portraits that Whistler made in 1858-59. Known by the pet name of Bibi, the child was son to J. M. Lalouette who ran a small hotel and restaurant at 5 rue de l'Odéon in Paris. Whistler often ate there and left a large unpaid bill when he moved to London. In August 1860 he sent partial payment, eliciting a relieved response from Monsieur Lalouette that mentions Bibi often talked of the artist, and noting the family's pride in their own impression of the present work. As in portrayals of his Haden nephews and niece, Whistler focused on his subject's features and barely indicated setting. A black cap resting on the counterpane functions as a visual punctuation point to balance the child's head. Ghostly forms below indicate that an earlier image was burnished away. This is a later impression perhaps made by the print dealer Frederick Keppel whose son donated the print. A hooked scratch across the sleeve found in earlier examples (83.1.23 and 17.3.44 ) has here disappeared.


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.