The Music Room

Whistler's first prints were etchings of maps created while a student at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he used the margins of his etching plates to draw tiny vignettes or caricatures. In 1855, Whistler traveled to Paris to begin artistic training, remaining in Europe for the rest of his life. The Music Room depicts a scene from his sister Deborah's residence in London which includes Deborah, her husband Seymour Haden, and his medical partner James Reeves Traer. Haden, shown reading the newspaper, gave Whistler access to his collection of seventeenth-century Dutch etchings which became integral in the development of Whistler's etching style. In The Music Room Whistler explored the dramatic effects of a single light source, reflecting his interest in Rembrandt's use of chiaroscuro.