Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman
Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman (
History
The nickname in the title indicates the friendship between the artist and his model and is unusual for contemporary portraits of women in that it gives the model's first name. They were probably painted in Trouville, where the painter spent August to November 1865 painting seascapes with Whistler and Joanna. On 17 November, towards the end of his stay, he wrote to his parents that he "bore himself admirably" and told them that he was Whistler's "pupil".[1] Whistler himself painted the portrait Courbet by the River or My Dear Courbet during the latter's stay with him.[2]
Courbet had already painted a series of paintings of women looking in mirrors in 1860 - this had been quite successful with the public and was exhibited in Brussels. The best known from that series, Woman with a Mirror, was painted in
Four versions
Image | Dimensions (cm) | Collection | City | Catalogue no. | Previous collection/sale |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
55,9 × 66 | Metropolitan Museum of Art | New York | 29.100.63 | H. O. Havemeyer collection (1929)
| |
54 × 65 | Nationalmuseum | Stockholm | NM 2543 | Entered the collection in 1926 | |
54,31 × 63,5 | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Kansas City |
32-30 | Scott and Fowles sale, New York (1932) | |
Unknown | Private Collection | Zürich | Unknown | Rolf & Margit Weinberg sale, Sotheby's New York (May 1998) |
References
- ^ "Chronology: Fall 1865", In: Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette, Origins of Impressionism, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994, p. 313.
- ^ (in French) « Courbet+Whistler ► L’Origine du monde : et si l’histoire était tout autre ? » by Isabelle Brunnarius, 24 October 2017 on France 3 Régions Blog.
- ^ (in French) « Addendum », in: Courbet (1819-1877), Paris, RMN, 1977, p.230.