Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College

The Human Comedy: Chronicles of 19th-Century France

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An American in France

AN AMERICAN IN FRANCE The American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) spent a considerable amount of time in France, during his youth as an art student and later in life at the height of his career. In 1858, Whistler sought out the printer Auguste Delâtre for the printing of his Twelve Etchings after Nature, or “French Set,” a series of domestic, genre, and street scenes. Printed on thick Japanese paper, these prints bear the traces of Delâtre’s unique “artistic” printing technique, which involved strategic wipings of the plate to create striking effects of light and shadow. The style of Whistler’s prints evolved considerably over his long and productive career. His handling of line in the much later The Laundress of la Place Dauphine (1894) displayed nearby shows an extreme delicacy that contrasts sharply with the bold, thick shadows of the “French Set.” Whistler’s choice of subject matter in these prints reflects the influence of the French realist and naturalist schools of painting and writing. The Laundress of la Place Dauphine depicts a typical Parisian laundry shop, with a woman seen ironing inside. The laundress was a subject treated with light-hearted grace and charm by 18th-century painters like Boucher and Fragonard. In the 19th century, writers like Émile Zola and artists such as Daumier, Degas, Jacque, and Millet would develop more realistic depictions of the strenuous and repetitive manual labor of the rural washer-woman or the urban laundress.


  1. La Blanchisseuse de la Place Dauphine

    James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903) La Blanchisseuse de la Place Dauphine (The Laundress of la Place Dauphine),…

  2. Kitchen in Normandy

    James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903) Kitchen in Normandy, 1858 Etching and drypoint Mrs. F.F. Prentiss Bequest, 1…

  3. Street in Saverne

    James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903) Street in Saverne, 1858 Etching and drypoint Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1900…

  4. August Delâtre at Work

    Maximilien Luce (French, 1858–1941) August Delâtre at Work, 1895 Etching Young-Hunter Art Museum Acquisition Fund, 1996.12 Mas…