Finette
Medium
Etching and drypoint in black on ivory Japanese paper
Dimensions
Image/plate: 29 × 20.1 cm (11 7/16 × 7 15/16 in.); Sheet: 38.6 × 26.4 cm (15 1/4 × 10 7/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
19796
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Actors, singers, chorus girls, and dancers were popular subjects for artists of the period. Josephine Durwend, a cancan dancer who performed in London and Paris from the 1850s to the 1870s, was known as Finette. Despite her immodest costumes in contemporary photographs and her reputation for vulgar language and drunkenness, Whistler chose to depict her tastefully dressed and standing in a dignified pose.
About the Artist
James McNeill Whistler · 1834–1903
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an American-born painter and printmaker who became a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement and pioneer of Tonalism and Japonisme. He revolutionized art by championing "art for art's sake" and treating paintings as visual equivalents of musical compositions, titling works as "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes" to emphasize formal qualities o...