The Music Room

The Music Room — James Abbott McNeill Whistler. 1859.

Medium: Etching, with selective wiping of plate tone, in black on off-white wove paper. Dimensions: Image/plate: 14.4 × 21.4 cm (5 11/16 × 8 7/16 in.); Sheet: 20.4 × 33.6 cm (8 1/16 × 13 1/4 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Long before Whistler conceived of the portrait of his mother, his most important early models were his half-sister, Deborah Haden, and her family. Deborah was married to the physician, print collector, and amateur artist Francis Seymour Haden, and they had three children, Annie, Seymour, and Arthur. During one visit in 1859, Whistler created ambitious but personal depictions of the family, including the The Music Room , which portrays the couple along with Haden’s medical partner, James Traer, as deeply absorbed in their respective activities. Meanwhile, the severe profile of Deborah in Reading by Lamplight (1917.443) anticipates Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 .

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.