Study for "Mrs. Newton with a Child by a Pool" (Primary Title)
James Jacques-Joseph Tissot, French, 1836 - 1902 (Artist)
After some initial success exhibiting medieval subjects at the Salon, Tissot began painting genre scenes from modern life and portraits of fashionable women around 1863. After fighting in the Franco-Prussian War and participating in the uprising of the Paris Commune (1870-71), he left France for London, where he had both social and artistic connections. His images of well-dressed women and upscale London living appealed to wealthy British industrialists, and he was soon able to buy a home in the neighborhood of St. John’s Wood. He declined an invitation to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1874; nevertheless, he remained close friends with many artists of the French avant-garde scene, including Degas, Morisot, Manet, and Whistler. Sometime between 1875 and 1876, he met and fell in love with Kathleen Kelly Newton, depicted here with her son, Cecil George Newton. Newton became the painter's muse, and she remained his favorite model until her untimely death from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-eight. The painting’s setting is probably the garden adjacent to his home, and the double portrait captures a moment from a period that, for Tissot, was filled with the joys of family life.
Not signed.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
2019-2020: "Van Gogh Monet Degas, The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", Palazzo Zabarella, Padua, Italy, October 26, 2019 - March 1, 2020
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018: "Country Life: Masterpieces from the Mellon Collection of MVFA", Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, France, September 4 - December 2, 2018
2018-2019: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
Panel exhibition, 2008
“Mary Cassatt Among the Impressionsits,” Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, April 10- June 1, 1969.
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018: "Country Life: Masterpieces from the Mellon Collection of MVFA", Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, France, September 4 - December 2, 2018
2018-2019: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
Panel exhibition, 2008
“Mary Cassatt Among the Impressionsits,” Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, April 10- June 1, 1969.
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC
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