
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00005828Corte del Paradiso
Inscriptions
Inscribed recto, center left edge, in green pastel and black chalk: [artist's butterfly monogram]; lower right, along bottom, in black chalk: Corte del Paradiso (in Whistler's hand); lower left corner, in black chalk: No. 38 (in Whistler's hand); lower left, in graphite: 5 5/8 x 11 1/2
Provenance
Cyril Flower (1843-1907), the first Lord Battersea. from 1881. John H. Wrenn (1840-1911), Chicago; by descent to Harold Brent Wrenn (1878-1938); by descent to John Henry Wrenn (1913-1981); to his wife, Mrs. J.H. Wrenn, to 1981 [all provenance is MacDonald 1995]; sold, Parke-Bernet, New York, December 2, 1982, lot 10, to The Warner Collection of Gulf States Paper Corporation, Tuscaloosa, Ala., to at least 1994 [MacDonald 1995]. Sold, Christie's, New York, May 26, 1999. Sold by Fine Art Society, London, to the Art Institute, 2002.
Exhibition history
London, The Fine Art Society, "Venice Pastels" 1881, cat. 52, as "Courtyard." London, Marchant and Company, "Watercolours, Pastels, Drawings in Black and White, Sculptures and Bronzes, by British and Foreign Artists," 1903, cat. 173. London, Marchant and Company, "Watercolours, Pastels, Drawings in Black and White, Sculptures and Bronzes, by British and Foreign Artists," 1904, cat. 24. London, New Gallery, "Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late James McNeill Whistler," February 22-April 15, 1905, cat. 61, as "A Venetian Courtyard." London, Tate Gallery, "James McNeill Whistler," October 13, 1994-January 8, 1995, p. 190 cat. 111 (ill.); traveled to Paris, Musée d'Orsay, February 6-April 30, 1995, and Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art, May 28-August 20, 1995. Richmond, Va, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, "American Dreams: Paintings and Decorative Arts from the Warner Collection," September 20, 1997-January 25, 1998, pp. 46-47 (ill., pl. 16). cat. by David Park Curry, with Elizabeth L. O’Leary and Susan Jensen Rawles. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Dreams and Echoes: Drawings and Sculpture in the David and Celia Hilliard Collection", October 20, 2013 - February 16, 2014, pp. 9, 20, 146-148, 159, 168, 226-227, cat. 62 (ill.), cat. by Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Melissa Gustin. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions," June 20-September 27, 2015, Checklist para. 5, cat. 4.1 (ill.).
Publications
T. R. Way, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist (London, 1912), facing p. 52 (ill.). Richard Dorment and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler (London, 1994), p. 190, no. 111 (ill.). Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 1995), p. 292, no. 784 (ill.). Alastair Grieve, Whistler’s Venice (New Haven and Londons, 2000), 149 (ill., fig. 187). Alastair Grieve, "Corte del Paradiso, 1880," The Fine Art Society Newsletter, Spring (London, 2000), p. 22. Margaret F. MacDonald, Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 99-100, 153, (ill., fig. 109). Martha Tedeschi, “Corte del Paradiso,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30:1 (2004), pp. 80-81 (ill.). David Park Curry, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces (Richmond, VA, 2004), pp. 87-88 (ill.). The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Judith A. Barter (Chicago, 2011), pp. 42-45 (ill., pl. 14). Thea Burns and Philippe Saunier, The Art of the Pastel (New York and London, 2014), p. 276 (ill.). Meg Hausberg and Victoria Sancho Lobis. Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions. Department of Publishing of The Art Institute of Chicago, 2015 (https://publications.artic.edu/whistler/reader/linkedvisions ; Accessed August 26, 2015), Checklist para. 5, cat. 4.1 (ill.).
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- James McNeill Whistler / American, 1834-1903
- Date
- 1880
- Medium
- Pastel and black chalk on brown wove paper with fibrous inclusions
- Dimensions
- 30.1 × 14.9 cm (11 7/8 × 5 7/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- pastel
- Place
- United States
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Walter Aitken, Margaret Day Blake, Harold Joachim Memorial, Celia and David Hilliard, Julius Lewis, and Sara R. Shorey endowments; Sandra L. Grung Fund; purchased with funds provided by William Vance and Pamela Kelley Armour; through prior acquisitions of Katherine Kuh
- Accession no.
- 2002.679
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