Singing a Pathetic Song

1881

Thomas Eakins

Painter, American, 1844 - 1916

A woman with dark hair pulled up in a bun, wearing a long, muted lilac-purple silk dress, stands singing in front of woman playing a piano and a man playing a cello in a dimly lit room in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. Light falls from our left onto the singing woman and the musicians sit in shadow behind her. The singing woman’s body is angled to our right, almost in profile, and she looks up and off into the distance with the light illuminating the curve of her forehead and right cheek. She has dark eyes, an oval face, and her lips are parted. She holds a sheet of paper, presumably music, down at her waist. Her pale purple dress is edged with lace at the neck and cuffs. A ruffle runs down the side of her floor-length skirt, and a ruffle lines the bottom hem around her feet. A train affixed to the back of the dress rests on the floor behind her. Both musicians face our right in profile. To our left, the man playing the cello has a white beard and hair, and he wears a dark suit and glasses. To our right, the woman at the piano wears a dark dress, and her dark hair is pulled up. The singing woman stands on a brick-red, patterned area rug, and the wall behind her is papered with sunflowers loosely sapced against a mottled, gold and caramel-brown background. A tall, light blue vase sits on a mantlepiece along the left edge, next to the cello player. A gold-framed picture hangs on the wall over the pianist.

Media Options

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Thomas Eakins made his career portraying upper-middle class residents of his native Philadelphia. Such depictions are anything but static likenesses; instead they show individuals engaged in their chosen profession or avocation, whether at the city's rivers and parks, in its surgical amphitheaters, or in its public and private performance venues, as in Singing a Pathetic Song.

This evocative depiction of the home musicale—popular in Victorian America generally, and in Eakins' own household in particular—exemplifies the artist's unidealized renderings of his contemporaries as well as his love of music. An earnest young singer accompanied by a pianist and cellist in a richly decorated interior concentrates on holding a note of her tune. The pathetic song, the most popular type of melody in 1860s and 1870s America, told tales of woe, such as death or tragic circumstances befalling innocent women or children. Recited by the singer as autobiographical, such ballads commonly moved audiences to tears.

A leading art critic of the day called the work "admirably painted, and . . . absolutely true to nature, a perfect record of the life amid which the artist lives." The painting remained in Eakins's collection until late 1885, when Edward Hornor Coates, a trustee of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (where Eakins taught), asked to exchange it for his Swimming (1885, Amon Carter Museum), a commissioned painting whose depiction of the artist and his male students posed nude in a landscape was both unexpected and controversial.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 68

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Purchased 1885 from the artist by Edward Hornor Coates, Philadelphia; his son-in-law and dealer, (John E.D.Trask, New York); purchased 20 October 1919 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1881

  • Fourth Annual Exhibition, Society of American Artists, March-April 1881, no. 21, as Lady Singing a Pathetic Song.

  • Ninth Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, Art Department, September-October 1881, no. 60.

1882

  • Fifty-third Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1882, no. 110.

1883

  • Brooklyn Art Guild, January 1883.

  • Internationale Kunst-Austellung, Königlicher Glaspalaste, Munich, July-October 1883, no. 519, as SIngendes Mädchen.

1884

  • Twelfth Annual Exhibition, Art Hall, Inter-State Industrial Exposition of Chicago, 1884, no. 147, as Pathetic Song.

1906

  • Sixth Exhibition of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers, New Gallery, London, 1906, as The Pathetic Song.

1917

  • Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late Thomas Eakins, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1917-1918, no. 119, as The Pathetic Song.

1932

  • American Painting and Sculpture, 1862-1932, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1932-1933, no. 30, as The Pathetic Song.

1934

  • A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, 1934, no. 393, as The Pathetic Song.

1935

  • American Painting and Sculpture of the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, January-February 1935, no. 20, as The Pathetic Song.

  • American Genre: The Social Scene in Paintings and Prints, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March-April 1935, no. 29, as The Pathetic Song.

1936

  • Exhibition of American Genre Paintings, Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1936, no. 33, as The Pathetic Song.

1949

  • De Gustibus: An Exhibition of American Paintings Illustrating a Century of Taste and Criticism, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949, no. 25, as The Pathetic Song.

1952

  • Great Portraits by Famous Painters, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1952, no. 43, as The Pathetic Song.

1955

  • The One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibtion, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1955, no. 90, as The Pathetic Song.

1957

  • Painting in America: The Story of 450 Years, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1957, no. 138, as The Pathetic Song.

1958

  • Thomas Eakins, 1844-1916: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, 1958, no. 17, as The Pathetic Song.

1959

  • Loan Exhibition. Masterpieces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art: A Benefit Exhibition in Honor of the Gallery's Centenary, Wildenstein, New York, 1959, unnumbered catalogue, repro., as The Pathetic Song.

1961

  • American Painting, 1865-1905, Art Gallery of Toronto; Winnipeg Art Gallery Association; Vancouver Art Gallery; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, January-June 1961, no. 20, as The Pathetic Song.

  • Thomas Eakins: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art, October 1961-March 1962, no. 40, as The Pathetic Song (shown only in Washington).

1966

  • Past and Present: 250 Years of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, unnumbered checklist, as The Pathetic Song.

1967

  • Triumph of Realism: An Exhibition of European and American Realist Paintings, 1850-1910, Brooklyn Museum; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1967-1968, no. 82, as The Pathetic Song (shown only in Brooklyn).

1970

  • 19th-Century America: Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropoliltan Museum of Art, New York, April-September 1970, no. 156, as The Pathetic Song.

  • Thomas Eakins Retrospective Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September-November 1970, no. 37, as The Pathetic Song.

1974

  • The Painter's America: Rural and Urban Life, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Oakland Museum, 1974-1975, no. 35, as The Pathetic Song (shown only in New York).

1976

  • Corcoran [The American Genius]. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1976, unnumbered catalogue, as The Pathetic Song.

1981

  • Of Time and Place: American Figurative Art from the Corcoran Gallery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Cincinnati Art Museum; San Diego Museum of Art; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga; Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Des Moines Art Center; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL, 1981-1983, no. 21, repro., as The Pathetic Song.

1983

  • A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760-1910, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Grand Palais, Paris, 1983-1984, no. 99, as The Pathetic Song.

1985

  • Henri's Circle, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985, no catalogue, as The Pathetic Song.

1993

  • The Century Club Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, July-September 1993, unpublished checklist.

  • Thomas Eakins and the Heart of American Life, National Portrait Gallery, London, October 1993-January 1994, no. 21, as The Pathetic Song.

1996

  • Thomas Eakins and the Swimming Picture, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Brandywine River Museum; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, as The Pathetic Song.

2001

  • Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Musée d'Orsay, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001-2002, unnumbered catalogue.

2004

  • Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, 1770-1950, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2004-2005, unpublished checklist.

2005

  • Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 47.

2008

  • The American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.

2009

  • American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009-2010, no. 27

2013

  • American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013-28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

1947

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Handbook of the American Paintings in the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1947: 50, repro. 51, as The Pathetic Song.

1959

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Masterpieces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1959: 57, repro.

2011

  • Cash, Sarah. "Thomas Eakins, Singing a Pathetic Song." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 154-157, 270, repros.

Inscriptions

lower left: Eakins. / 1881
On verso: Whitney label

Wikidata ID

Q20188884

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