
Public data from the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more
Toning the Bell
Provenance
Mark S. Willing (1878–1944) and Margaret Woodbridge McFadon Willing (1883–1948; also Mrs. Mark S. Willing), Chicago, by 1938; sold to the Friends of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, 1938; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1938.
Inscriptions
Signed, lower left: "Walter Shirlaw / 1874"
Exhibition history
Chicago, World's Columbian Exposition, May 1–Oct. 31, 1893. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Survey of American Painting, Oct. 24–Dec. 15, 1940, cat. Chicago, Lyon and Healy, Apr. 14–30, 1952. Evanston, Illinois, Scott Hall, Northwestern University, Apr. 2–9, 1954. Art Institute of Chicago, Art at the Time of the Centennial, June 19–Aug. 15, 1976, no cat. Cincinnati Art Museum, Munich & American Realism in the 19th Century, Apr. 20–May 28, 1978; Milwaukee Art Center, July 13–Aug. 27, 1978; Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, Oct. 28–Dec. 10, 1978. Berlin, Deutscheshistorisches Museum, VICEVERSA Geman Painters in America–American Painters in German 1813 – 1913, Sept. 19–Dec. 31, 1996.
Publications
Homer Saint-Gaudens, ed., Survey of American Painting, exh. cat. (Carnegie Institute, Department of Fine Arts, 1940), n.p., cat. Carolyn Kinder Carr, et al., "Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair" (University Press of New England, 1993), 317 (ill.). Judith A. Barter, et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998), 208–210, no. 96. Susanne Böller, "Exkurs: 'The Munich Men' – Amerikanische Maler der Münchner Schule," in Es war einmal in Amerika – 300 Jahre US-amerikanische Kunst [Once Upon a Time in America: Three Centuries of American Art], eds. Barbara Schaefer and Anita Hachmann (Cologne: Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud/Wienand Verlag, 2018), 110, fig. 11 (ill.).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Walter Shirlaw (American, born Scotland, 1838–1909)
- Date
- 1874
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 101.6 × 76.2 cm (40 × 30 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- painting
- Style
- Realism
- Place
- Munich
- Department
- Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Friends of American Art Collection
- Accession no.
- 1938.1280
More by Walter Shirlaw in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00001346
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