CC0 · no rights reserved
The Purple Cap
From the collection of National Museum of Asian Art (Freer/Sackler). Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
"Take the pastels. Whistler did not discover the medium, but he certainly found a fresh use for it. Instead of rubbing the colour all over the paper, and generally endeavouring to imitate the effect of an oil painting, Whistler made a more crayon-like use of his pastel stick. He drew rather than painted. His colour he used sparingly with dainty, incisive touches. The result was a poetic suggestiveness of form and gem-like brilliancy of colour never seen before nor equalled since."
National Museum of Asian Art (Freer/Sackler)’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineThe Purple Cap. 1870s; reworked 1885. James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). National Museum of Asian Art (Freer/Sackler), Gift of Charles Lang Freer. CC0.
