The Trial Sermon, Joanna Douglas at Her Desk
Medium
wood engraving and letterpress
Dimensions
image: 15.3 × 11.5 cm · sheet: 24.6 × 17.7 cm
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Henry Sayles Francis
Accession Number
1941.135
Tags
male
About this artwork
One of only a handful of illustrations created by American artist James McNeill Whistler, this image accompanied an anonymously published romantic, moralizing short story entitled “The Trial Sermon” that appeared in the 1862 issue of Good Words, a British periodical. Like many of Whistler’s paintings, his illustrations avoid narrative elements; he focused instead on character sketches, allowing him to explore the visual and technical possibilities of his medium. Lost in thought, the woman in the...