A young man with short, dark bushy hair, a moustache and 'imperial' beard, and wearing a smoking cap, sits facing front, bending forward, holding between his legs a violoncello. He is lit from the right and casts shadows on the wall behind and to the left. At the bottom of the plate and near the top are muskets and other traces of an earlier etching, not by Whistler. Becquet was a considerable sculptor, a landscape painter, and a good musician, an enthusiast for the works of Beethoven, Schubert, Bach and other great composers. In 1895 he made a statue entitled La Voix du violencelle (a standing female nude playing the cello).
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J. Becquet, Sculptor

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill

1859

Artwork Information

  • Title:

    J. Becquet, Sculptor

  • Artist:

    Whistler, James Abbott McNeill

  • Artist Bio:

    American, 1834–1903

  • Date:

    1859

  • Medium:

    Drypoint

  • Dimensions:

    9 5/8 x 7 1/8 inches

  • Credit Line:

    Wichita Art Museum, The Paul Jean Wall and Jean Wall Tinker Collection, Gift from Alice Jean Tinker and Steve Port

  • Object Number:

    2016.9.116

  • Display:

    Not Currently on Display