Speke Hall: The Avenue
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Description
Speke Hall, No. 1
1870
Etching and drypoint
Fifth state of ten (Kennedy 96)
Bequest of Margaret Watson Parker, 1954/1.354
Whistler’s most important patron in the 1870s was the Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick R. Leyland; he became a close friend of the Leyland family and painted portraits of Leyland, his wife Frances, and their daughters. It was for their London dining room that Whistler created the Peacock Room now in the Freer Art Gallery in Washington, DC. Though eventually conflict over that commission ended their relationship, prior to this Whistler stayed for extended periods at the Leyland’s home, Speke Hall, a sixteenth-century Tudor manor house near Liverpool.
In this work, Whistler can be seen applying his understanding of the handling of space in the Japanese prints he admired to a very traditional subject: a portrait of a manor house and its mistress. A screen of leafless trees interrupts the view of the distant half-timbered house, while in the foreground Mrs. Leyland is shown standing in the drive of Speke Hall. Whistler uses the untouched copper at the center of the image—reminiscent of the use of blank spaces in Japanese prints—to convey the desolate winter weather as well as a kind of visual silence. This also flattens the composition, an effect enhanced by the high horizon line, and creates a spatially ambiguous relationship between Mrs. Leyland and the building. This was Whistler’s first etching in nearly a decade, and his rekindled interest may have been sparked by Leyland’s own interest in Whistler’s etchings.
Subject Matter:
Frederick Leyland was one of Whistler most important patrons in the early years of his career; it is for Leyland's London house that Whistler created the elaborate Peacock Room, owned by Freer and now in the Freer Gallery in Washington. Speke Hall was Leyland's Elizabethan period residence near Liverpool and Whistler was invited by the Leylands to spend time at Speke Hall.
Physical Description:
A woman in a long dress and hat stands in the foreground of a wintery landscape. She stands in the tree-lined approach to a grand house with numerous gabes and elaborate geometric half-timbered designs on the facade. The scene is viewed from an elevated vantagepoint, thus looking down on the woman, who is seen in profile facing to the left and looking down.
Usage Rights:
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