The Artists' Wives
Artist
James Jacques Joseph Tissot
(French, 1836-1902)
CultureFrench
Date1885
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions57 1/2 × 40 in. (146.1 × 101.6 cm)
Overall, Frame: 69 1/4 × 51 3/4 × 5 in. (175.9 × 131.4 × 12.7 cm)
Overall, Frame: 69 1/4 × 51 3/4 × 5 in. (175.9 × 131.4 × 12.7 cm)
InscribedSigned lower left: J.J. Tissot
Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and The Grandy Fund, Landmark Communications Fund, and "An Affair to Remember" 1982
Object number81.153
Collections
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 102
Label TextJames Jacques Joseph Tissot French, 1836–1902 The Artists’ Wives, 1885 Oil on canvas On the day before the opening of the annual Salon exhibition in France, artists applied a final coat of varnish to their pictures and adjourned to a café to celebrate. James Tissot’s painting depicts this ritual gathering on the terrace of the restaurant Ledoyen, a Parisian institution still today. The bustling scene includes portraits of several well-known artists like the sculptor Auguste Rodin, whose bearded, bespectacled face appears near the center of the painting. More than a portrait of the artists, however, Tissot’s work focuses on the stylish, urban women in attendance—the artists’ wives. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and The Grandy Fund, Landmark Communications Fund, and “An Affair to Remember” 1982 81.153 ProvenanceSale, Christie's, London, March 30, 1889, no. 134; Mr. Day; Charles Field Haseltine; Art Association of the Union League of Philadelphia, 1894; M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1981; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and the Grandy Fund, Landmark Communications Fund, and "An Affair to Remember," to the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, 1981. Exhibition History"James Jacques Joseph Tissot, 1836-1902," Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Feb. 28 - May 5, 1968. "French Salon Paintings from Southern Collections," The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, jan. 21 - March 3, 1983; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, April 1 - May 22, 1983; The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, June 25 - Aug. 21, 1983; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Sept. 15 - Oct. 23, 1983. (Exhib. cat. no. 63). "Exposition J.-J. Tissot: Quinze Tableaux sur la Femme à Paris," Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris, April 19 - June 15, 1885. "Pictures of Parisian Life by J.J. Tissot," Arthur Tooth and Sons, London, 1886. "French Paintings from The Chrysler Museum," North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, May 31 - Sept. 14, 1986; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL, Nov. 6, 1986 - Jan. 18, 1987. (Exhib. cat. no. 36). "Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in Late - 19th - Century France," Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME, June 23 - October 15, 2006. "Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts," Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, February 12 - May 3, 2009; The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, June 16 - Oct. 4, 2009. "Upstairs/Downstairs: Masterpieces from the Chrylser Collection," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, October 10 - December 30, 2012. "James Tissot," Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, Italy, September 26, 2015 - February 21, 2016. “James Tissot: Fashion and Faith,” Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA, October 12, 2019 – February 9, 2020; Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France, March 22, 2020 – September 13, 2020. "Come Together, Right Now: The Art of Gathering," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, October 11, 2020 - January 3, 2021.Published ReferencesCatalogue. _Catalogue of the Works of Art in the Union League of Philadelphia_. 1908: 27. J. Laver. "Vulgar Society." _The Romantic Career of James Tissot_. London. 1938. Catalogue. _Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings Belonging to the Union League of Philadelphia_. 1940: 26. M. Whiteman. _Paintings and Sculptures at the Union League of Philadelphia_. Philadelphia. 1978. 98, 90, ill. Eric M. Zafran, with an introductory essay by Gerald M. Ackerman. _French Salon Paintings from Southern Collections_. Atlanta, GA: The High Museum of Art. 1982. No. 63. Essays by Yochanan Muffs and Gert Schiff, and a chronology by Michael Wentworth and David S. Brooke. _Biblical Paintings: J. James Tissot_. New York: Jewish Museum. 1982., 22 ill. John Russell. _Paris_. New York: Abrams. 1983. 222-223, illustrated. Michael Wentworth. _James Tissot_. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1984. 162-167, pl. 187, appendix V, no. 10. Jefferson C. Harrison. "Nineteenth-Century French Art - Part I," _The Chrysler Museum Gallery Guide_. Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum. 1985. No. 18. "Tissot's Novel Art Work," _New York Times_. 05/10/1885: 4. Christopher Wood. _Tissot: The Life and Work of Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)_. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1986: 137, color plate no. 145. "The Chronicle of Art," _The Magazine of Art_. London. 1886: xxiv. Jefferson C. Harrison. _French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum_. The Chrysler Museum. 1986. No. 36, 71-72. John Milner. _The Studios of Paris: The Capital of Art in the Late Nineteenth Century_. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1988: 54, no. 59. Lois Marie Fink. _American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons_. Washington, DC, and Cambridge: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution and Cambridge University Press. 1990: 104-5, plate 11. Barbara Stern Shapiro, et al.. _Pleasures of Paris: Daumier to Picasso_. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1991. Fig. 2, 29. Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. The Chrysler Museum. 1991. Plate 115, 146-147. Mary Ellen Jordan Haight. _Paris Portraits, Renoir to Chanel: Walks on the Right Bank_. Layton, Utah: A Peregrine Smith Book, published by Gibbs Smith, Publisher. 1991: 155, 166. Ulrich W. Hiesinger. _Julius LeGlanc Stewart, American Painter of the Belle Epoque_. New York: Vance Jordan Fine Art Inc., 1998, 39-41, fig. 21. Katharine Lochnan, ed. _Seductive Surfaces: The Art of Tissot_. Studies in British Art 6. Yale University Press. 1999. Fig. 38. Edited by Everett Fahy with a preface by Pierre Rosenberg and contributions by Elizabeth E. Barker, Everett Fahy, George R. Goldner, Alain Gruber, Colta Ives, Asher Ethan Miller, Sabine Rewald, Perrin V. Stein, and Gary Tinterow, _The Wrightsman Pictures_ (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 416, 418. Essays by Gabriel P. Weisberg and Jennifer L. Shaw, with introductory statements by Scott M. Black, Daniel O'Leary and Carrie Haslett,_Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in Late - 19th - Century France_, exh. cat., Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, 2006, 13-14, 34. Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 49, fig. 48. Diana Donald and Jane Munro, eds., _Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts_ (New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art, 2009), 278 fig.282. Eric M. Zafran, "Norfolk's Salon Masterworks Shine Again," _Fine Art Connoisseur_, November-December 2014, 51. Cyrille Sciama, _James Tissot_ (Milan: Skira, 2015) 130, cat. no. 55. Melissa E. Buron, _James Tissot_,(New York: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in association with DelMonico Books | Prestel, 2019) fig. 118, page 197. Bertrand Tillier, "La Femme à Paris et l'adieu à la modernité," in _Dossier de L'Art: James Tissot, L'ambigu moderne_, April 2020, no. 278, p.54.
