James Abbott McNeil Whistler

JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER (United States, 1834- 1903).
"The forge".
Etching on paper.
Framed with museum glass".
Signed in plate in lower right corner.
Measurements. 11 x 18 cm; 27 x 34 cm (frame).
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter, watercolorist and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusions in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake." After moving to St. Petersburg, the young Whistler received private art lessons and, at the age of eleven, enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Art. In 1844 he met the celebrated artist Sir William Allan, who arrived in Russia with a commission to paint a history of the life of Peter the Great. Whistler was sent to Christ Church Hall School with his mother's hope that he would become a minister. However, it became clear that a religious career did not suit him, so he applied to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where his father had taught drawing and other relatives had attended. Whistler arrived in Paris in 1855, rented a studio in the Latin Quarter and quickly adopted the life of a bohemian artist.