Becquet, or the Fiddler
Drypoint
1859 (made)
1859 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Following the months spent in Wapping at work on his Thames Set etchings, Whistler returned to Paris for a few months towards the end of 1859. There he experimented with and quickly mastered the exacting technique of drypoint. This method of drawing on an unprepared etching plate with a sharp tool allows the artist to create delicate and spontaneous marks which print with a richness unobtainable by conventional etching. Influenced by the portraits of Van Dyck and Rembrandt, Whistler created a group of prints of Bohemian friends such as the flamboyant cellist, Becquet.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Titles |
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| Materials and techniques | Drypoint |
| Brief description | Drypoint portrait by James McNeill Whistler, 'Becquet, or the Fiddler', 1859 |
| Physical description | Drypoint |
| Dimensions |
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| Credit line | Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | Following the months spent in Wapping at work on his Thames Set etchings, Whistler returned to Paris for a few months towards the end of 1859. There he experimented with and quickly mastered the exacting technique of drypoint. This method of drawing on an unprepared etching plate with a sharp tool allows the artist to create delicate and spontaneous marks which print with a richness unobtainable by conventional etching. Influenced by the portraits of Van Dyck and Rembrandt, Whistler created a group of prints of Bohemian friends such as the flamboyant cellist, Becquet. |
| Bibliographic reference | The following reference on the title is from the catalogue raisonné of the artist available on the University of Glasgow website:
'Whistler's original title, 'The Fiddler', as published in the 'Thames Set' would normally be the one used in the catalogue raisonné. However, it is misleading, since the subject is a man playing the cello, not a fiddle, and so early American exhibition catalogues corrected it to 'The Cello Player' or 'The Violocellist'.
Despite his musical abilities, Becquet was actually a sculptor, and the first title recorded for this etching is 'Becquet, sculptor', a title probably provided by Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) when selling an impression in 1861. Similarly the title 'Portrait of Mons. Becquet, sculptor' was used at Whistler's first one-man exhibition in 1874. 'J. Becquet, sculptor' identifies the sitter clearly, and is the preferred title. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | CAI.145 |
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| Record created | April 3, 2008 |
| Record URL |
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