Gambling Salon at Baden-Baden
date: label: Date
content: 1858
name: label: Artist
content: James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
notes: label: Label
content: Using a free drawing technique that recalls Gavarni's handling of crowd scenes, Whistler here depicts one of Baden Baden's primary tourist attractions. The allure of the city's gambling tables had been described in Thackeray's Vanity Fair, and Whistler adopted an illustrational mode. Always interested in formal porperties, however, Whistler reinforced his subject matter by centering the roulette wheel and calling attention to it with a large black form, probably a hanging lamp. A circular light space is ringed by heads-wheellike forms dominate even though we are aware that the table is rectangular. It is possible that Whistler later added the rich charcoal to the underlying pencil. On the verso are several pencil drawings.
label: Provenance
content: Seymour Haden (1818-1910), London [1]
label: Provenance
content: To 1898
label: Provenance
content: H. Wunderlich & Co., New York to 1898 [2]
label: Provenance
content: From 1898 to 1919
label: Provenance
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from H. Wunderlich & Co., through Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938), in November 1898 [3]
label: Provenance
content: From 1920
label: Provenance
content: Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [4]
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] See Original Whistler List, Haden Collection Drawings, pg. 1, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.
label: Provenance
content: [2] See Voucher No. 20, November 1898, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.
label: Provenance
content: [3] See note 2.
label: Provenance
content: [4] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.
label: Collection
content: Freer Gallery of Art Collection
label: Exhibition History
content: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art—Whistler and Modern Life (May 11, 1984 to December 16, 1984)
label: Exhibition History
content: Drawings by James McNeill Whistler (August 1, 1974 to April 14, 1975)
label: Exhibition History
content: Untitled Exhibition, Whistler Drawings, Etchings, and Lithographs, 1959 (April 15, 1959 to November 2, 1959)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: H. Wunderlich & Co. (1874-1912) (C.L. Freer source)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)
place: label: Origin
content: United States
topic: label: Topic
content: United States
label: Topic
content: American Art
label: Topic
content: gambling
label: Topic
content: Charles Lang Freer collection
setName: label: Related Online Resources
content: Google Arts & Culture
label: See more items in
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Charles Lang Freer
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: F1898.163
objectType: label: Type
content: Drawing
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Pencil and charcoal on white paper
label: Dimensions
content: H x W: 22.2 x 26.8 cm (8 3/4 x 10 9/16 in)