The Trial Sermon, Joanna Douglas at Her Desk

One of only a handful of illustrations created by American artist James McNeill Whistler, this image accompanied an anonymously published romantic, moralizing short story entitled “The Trial Sermon” that appeared in the 1862 issue of Good Words, a British periodical. Like many of Whistler’s paintings, his illustrations avoid narrative elements; he focused instead on character sketches, allowing him to explore the visual and technical possibilities of his medium. Lost in thought, the woman in the picture communicates very little of her interior life. Instead, Whistler’s rendering of the figure matches that of her surroundings, turning her into an aesthetic object.