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 Whistler

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

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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