Swan and Iris (Sketch after Cecil Lawson's "Swan and Iris")

Cecil Gordon Lawson|James McNeill Whistler

[1883] · Etching, printed in brownish-black ink on medium weight ivory laid paper; third state of six (Glasgow) · Drawings and Prints

Whistler's etching is based on an unfinished painting by the British landscapist Lawson, a member of the Idyllists. The tranquil riverscape is composed of a flowering iris in the foreground, and a swan with outstretched wings moving across an expanse of water, perhaps the River Thames, towards a bank in the middle distance. The composition is framed by the wide span of an arched bridge. The print was commissioned as an illustration for a posthumous biography of Lawson written by Edmund Gosse and published in 1883, a copy of which is in the Museum's collection (17.3.2983). Lawson's wife, Constance Lawson, was the elder sister of Whistler's wife-to-be Beatrice Philip Godwin, whom he married in 1888.

Artist

Cecil Gordon Lawson|James McNeill Whistler

Date

[1883]

Medium

Etching, printed in brownish-black ink on medium weight ivory laid paper; third state of six (Glasgow)

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917