Firelight: Joseph Pennell, No.1 (as published in "Lithography and Lithographers"

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

This portrait, one of 3 Whistler did of Joseph Pennell, was done in 1896 and published as the frontispiece in "Lithography and Lithographers" by Joseph Pennell in 1898 and again in 1908. The stone was effaced and no further posthumous printing was done. There was an edition of 15 impressions pulled by Way in 1897 and signed by Whistler.

James McNeill Whistler is known throughout the art world as a leading portrait painter and a pioneering lithographer, and between the two mediums there was often a clear divide between the formal and the casual - though both were equally intimate. In “Firelight: Joseph Pennell No. 1” the sense of relaxed familiarity could not be more prominant. Unlike his oils, in which the artist’s aim of coaxing forth the subtleties of light and texture imbued the figure with a sense of orthodox objectivity, his lithographic studies often captured a person in a moment of particularly personal expression: concentration, relaxation, daydreaming.

Here, his good friend and artistic peer, with whom he was a part of the Etching Revival of the late 19th century, is seen leaning casually back against his chair with his hands clasped behind his head, legs comfortably crossed. The viewer can imagine the atmosphere of the room, with its pattern of familiar conversation, perhaps a dram of whiskey, and a shared laugh. This is Whistler at his most private, whether intentional or accidental.