Seymour Standing Under a Tree
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Seymour Standing Under a Tree, 1859, etching and drypoint on fine laid paper; inscribed in pencil by Seymour Haden in lower margin “1st pr from plate”. References: Glasgow 30, second state (of three); Kennedy 31, second state (of three); Lochnan 35. On laid paper, watermark:
Hunting Horn in Shield, 5 ¼ x 3 7/8, the sheet 7 1/8 x 5 5/8 inches
Provenance:
Kennedy Galleries, New York (their stock number in pencil on verso a37155)
Ethel Gardner; a gift in memory of her husband George Peabody Gardner (nephew and heir of Isabella Stewart Gardner)
to Bishop Laurence of the Archdiocese of Boston
George S. van Houten, Waalre, Netherlands
The young boy leaning against a tree, possibly in Greenwich Park near London, with his partial reflection visible on the surface of
the water in the foreground, is Francis Seymour Jr. (born 1850), the older son of Whistler’s half-sister Deborah Delano, known
as Dasha (1825–1908), and her husband Francis Seymour Haden (1818–1910). The couple had another son, Arthur Charles
(born 1852) and a daughter, Anne Harriet, known as Annie (born 1848), both of whom were portrayed by their uncle in some
of his earliest etchings (Kennedy 9 and 10).