A Convalescent

James Tissot prints bring the silk dresses, garden parties and riverside afternoons of Victorian London and Belle Époque Paris into your home. Tissot was a French painter who made his name with finely detailed pictures of fashionable life, then spent his last years illustrating the Bible. Our collection of fine art prints covers his society scenes, portraits of Kathleen Newton, the Prodigal Son series, Vanity Fair caricatures and hundreds of biblical scenes.

About James Tissot

Jacques Joseph Tissot was born in Nantes on 15 October 1836. His father was a draper and his mother a milliner, a background often linked to the care with which he painted clothes. He took the name James out of love for all things English. Around 1856 he went to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts under Hippolyte Flandrin and Louis Lamothe, and there he met Edgar Degas, James McNeill Whistler and Édouard Manet. He first showed at the Salon in 1859, with medieval scenes.

In the 1860s he turned to modern life, painting elegant women in contemporary dress. He also drew caricatures for the London magazine Vanity Fair under the name Coïdé. After serving in the Franco-Prussian War and the defence of Paris, he moved to London in 1871, bought a house in St John's Wood and quickly became a sought-after painter of fashionable society. In 1874 he turned down Degas's invitation to show at the first Impressionist exhibition, though he stayed on friendly terms with the group.

Around 1876 he met Kathleen Newton, an Irish divorcee who became his companion and favourite model. After her death from tuberculosis in 1882 he returned to Paris and painted Woman of Paris, a series of fifteen pictures of women at work and at leisure. In 1885 a religious experience at the church of Saint-Sulpice changed his course. He travelled to the Middle East to study the setting, and his 365 gouaches of the Life of Christ drew crowds in Paris, London and New York before the Brooklyn Museum bought them in 1900. He received the Legion of Honour in 1894 and died at the Château de Buillon in eastern France on 8 August 1902.

Style and Subjects

Tissot painted with an almost photographic precision. Every ribbon and flounce is in place, and his settings are just as exact: ship decks, conservatories, Thames-side taverns and London parks. Behind the polish there is often a story, a glance or a moment of tension between men and women. He was also one of the first painters in Paris to take up Japanese art, adding screens, kimonos and objects to his pictures and borrowing unusual angles from Japanese prints.

His Bible pictures are a different world: hundreds of small, carefully observed scenes based on what he saw in Palestine, more interested in accurate costume and landscape than in drama.

Famous Works

• The Circle of the Rue Royale (1868), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. A group portrait of members of a smart Paris club, from the years when he was the portraitist of elegant society.
• Tea (1872), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. An afternoon-tea scene from his first London years.
• The Ball on Shipboard (c. 1874), Tate Britain, London. Guests in summer dresses under an awning sewn from the flags of many nations.
• The Gallery of HMS Calcutta (Portsmouth) (1876), Tate, London. A flirtation on a warship's gallery, much talked about for its subtext.
• Mavourneen (1877). Kathleen Newton wrapped against the winter, painted from his 1876 etching of her.
• The Shop Girl (La demoiselle de magasin) (1883–85), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. From the Woman of Paris series, a picture of a working woman that writers read as a study of desire and class.
• What Our Lord Saw from the Cross (c. 1890), Brooklyn Museum, New York. The crucifixion seen from Christ's own viewpoint, from the Life of Christ series.

Decorating with Tissot Prints

Tissot's society pictures were made for well-dressed rooms. A large scene such as The Ball on Shipboard works over a dining room sideboard or in a formal living room, and its white dresses and colourful flags suit both classic and modern interiors. The quieter garden pictures of Kathleen Newton, like The Hammock or My Garden in St. John's Wood, are lovely in a bedroom or sunroom.

Fashion lovers can build a gallery wall in a dressing room from his portraits of women. The Vanity Fair caricatures suit a study, and the small, detailed Bible scenes a quiet reading room or hallway.

FAQ

What art movement was James Tissot part of?

Tissot does not fit one movement. He trained as an academic painter, painted modern life alongside his friends Degas and Manet, and was an early follower of Japonisme, but he declined to exhibit with the Impressionists.

What is James Tissot's most famous painting?

His best-known works include The Ball on Shipboard (c. 1874), The Gallery of HMS Calcutta (1876) and The Circle of the Rue Royale (1868). His 365 Life of Christ gouaches at the Brooklyn Museum were his greatest popular success.

Who was Kathleen Newton?

Kathleen Newton was an Irish divorcee who lived with Tissot in St John's Wood from 1877 and appears in dozens of his paintings and prints. He called the years with her the happiest of his life; she died of tuberculosis in 1882.

Where can I see Tissot's paintings?

Major works are in Tate Britain, the Musée d'Orsay, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Related Artists

• Edgar Degas: close friend from his student days in Paris, who painted Tissot's portrait
• James Abbott McNeill Whistler: friend who introduced him to Japanese art and influenced his Thames scenes
• Édouard Manet: friend from Paris who travelled to Venice with Tissot
• Alfred Stevens: Belgian painter of fashionable women, named with Tissot as a leading Japoniste
• Berthe Morisot: Impressionist painter who visited Tissot in London in 1874