Study for "Arrangement in Black, No. 2: Portrait of Mrs. Louis Huth" (recto); Study for "Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland" (verso)

Art Institute of Chicago

Study for "Arrangement in Black, No. 2: Portrait of Mrs. Louis Huth" (recto); Study for "Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland" (verso)

James McNeill WhistlerLinkedCulture matchlcp-0d1a42681515

Date
c. 1872
Medium
Pastel (recto), and black chalk with touches of pink and white pastel (verso), on brown wove paper
Culture
United States
Department
Prints and Drawings
Institution
Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID
113070

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

Whistler created this sketch in preparation for a large-format painting. Made around the same time as the portrait of his mother, this drawing shows its subject, Mrs. Louis Huth, standing in front of a patterned textile and oriented to the viewer nearly in full profile. We know from a letter that Anna Whistler wrote late in 1871 that she tried to model for her son in a standing position but found it too physically demanding. No similar preparatory study for the painting survives; since Whistler lived with his mother, he had little need of a memory aid sketch like this one. He could paint his model directly from life any day of the week, except Sundays, when she demurred for religious observance.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line
Gift of Walter S. Brewster
Provenance
Probably, Mrs. Louise Huth (née Helen Rose Ogilvy; later Mrs. Archibald Barwell How), acquired directly from the artist, 1872 [MacDonald 1995]. Robert Dunthorne, London and Liverpool [MacDonald 1995]. Possibly, Edwin Thompson, Liverpool; sold, London, Christie's, February 27, 1925, lot 101, as "Lady in Black Dress," to Brown and Philips, London [MacDonald 1995]. Possibly, D. C. Thomson, London, 1927 [MacDonald 1995]. Sold by Albert Roullier to Walter S. Brewster (1872-1954), Chicago, June 2, 1927 [invoice]; given to the Art Institute, 1933.

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Object type
AAT300033973

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