Jm Whistler (attr. To) 19th Century Drawing, Study Of A Nude Woman, Bathing In Nature, Circa Belle époque

Antique drawing, study of a nude woman, bathing in nature, probably circa Belle Epoque, attribution label to James McNeil Whistler

Charcoal (black pastel) and white chalk

Visual (dimensions of the drawing alone inside the tondo): 27.4 cm x 21.5 cm - Framed: 43.8 cm x 33.5 cm
Marie-louise gilt frame in the shape of a tondoImportant drawing imbued with elegance.
A magnificent study of a nude woman, represented standing, with a mixture of sophistication and naturalness, sketched from life, suspending her graceful gestures. A bathing scene in nature, probably circa Belle Epoque, presenting an attribution label to “J. M Whistler” for James Abbott McNeil Whistler (1834 - 1903). The evocation of the most Proustian of American painters in connection with this study of a nude woman, perhaps returning from swimming, wearing a bath towel, makes sense. This attribution of the label to James Abott McNeil Whistler, a particularly highly rated artist who is mainly found for sale at Christie's or Sotheby's, is consistent with the sketch work and studies of Whistler, an immense American artist, painter but above all a draftsman with a particular fondness for representations of nude women barely draped or wearing a bath towel or parasol in a very Belle Époque spirit; elegant, often mysterious works, with atmospheric audacity, treated with charcoal or pastel enhanced with white chalk, often on brown paper. On the back, an old attribution to a very great signature also, but this time from English art, Thomas Gainsborough known as Gainsborough Dupont, one of the greatest talents of the English 18th century, a skilled draftsman whose several studies of a romantic treatment are treated in natural settings, as here, through this bathing scene in the open air, with the sketch of this wooded background. The former owners of this work considered it to be of extraordinary quality and attributed it, whether it was Gainsborough or Whistler, to a master of drawing. The attribution to Whistler seems more convincing to us, a representation more in line with the Belle Époque and particularly consistent with the corpus of James Abbott McNeil Whistler.
Full description on the WE ART TOGETHER GALLERY website