American Art Collaborative

Whistler first experimented with lithography in 1878 and returned to it in the late 1880s and 1890s. He used an oil-based crayon to draw his compositions on paper whose designs were then transferred to a polished stone for printing. In Passage du Dragon Whistler depicts a Parisian blacksmith diligently working in solitude. The blacksmith was a figure that reappears in Whistler’s art. He identified with metalworkers and emulated the concentrated labor and fine craftsmanship such artisans were known for.