The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

The Old Rag Woman, No. 10

1858

James McNeill Whistler

(American, 1834–1903)
America
etching with chine collé
Plate: 20.8 x 14.8 cm (8 3/16 x 5 13/16 in.); Sheet: 27.3 x 20.8 cm (10 3/4 x 8 3/16 in.)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph King 1922.438
Catalogue raisonné: Kennedy 21; Glasgow 27
Location: Not on view

Description

Whistler's first set of prints, the so-called French Set, included domestic and genre scenes, studies of friends and their children, and glimpses of shadowy figures in backstreets, alleyways, and anonymous interiors. His choice of subject and treatment reflected the American ex-patriot's awareness of modern realist trends in French art. This print, made after Whistler's return to Paris from the Rhine, describes an old woman silhouetted in a doorway, thrown into relief by a shadowed interior. Bent with fatigue, she sits among bundles of scavenged rags, gathered by the poor and sold to papermakers. The image resonates with the painful combination of aging and urban poverty.
  • Mary Cassatt and the Feminine Ideal in 19th-Century Paris. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 14, 2012-January 20, 2013).
    The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).
    Etchings and Lithographs by Whistler: Gifts and Loans of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph King. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-April 2, 1923).
  • {{cite web|title=The Old Rag Woman, No. 10|url=false|author=James McNeill Whistler|year=1858|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1922.438