Isabella Mary Anne Grant Boott
Birthname: Boott
Alias: Isabella, Belle
Nationality: British
Date of birth: 1831 or 1832
Place of birth: Dudley, Worcestershire, or Middlesex, UK
Date of death: 6 June 1892
Place of death: Lyons, France
Category: model
Identity:
Isabella's parents were Dr Francis Boott (1792-1863), the son of Kirk Boott Sr (1755-1817) and Mary Love Boott (ca 1785-1856). Dr Boott married Mary Hardcastle in Derby, UK, in 1820. Their children were Mary, Francis H., John, Kirk, Lucy A., Isabella and Elizabeth R. Boott.
It was Kirk Boot senior, grandfather of Isabella, who had invited Whistler's father to Lowell, Massachusetts, where the artist was born in 1834.
In 1848 Isabella's older sister Mary Boott (1821-1897) married Charles Sydenham Haden (1822-1897) son of Charles Thomas Haden (1786-1823) and Emma Harrison. C.S. Haden's younger brother, Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910), married Whistler's half-sister Deborah, and thus was a relative of the artist by marriage.
The family tree is not entirely clear!
Life:
Isabella Boott appears dressed in riding habit in At the Piano y024, painted by Whistler in the music room at 62 Sloane Street, the home of Deborah and Annie Haden, who also appear in the painting. Isabella would have been about 28 at the time. The picture was given by Whistler's mother to her daughter-in-law, Julia, the second wife of Whistler’s half-brother George.
In 1877 and 1880 'Boott, Isabella Mary Anne Grant' was listed as 'Spinster at British vice consulate Lyons', and in 1878 at 48 Gower Street, Bedford Square, London, in records of The London Joint Stock Bank in the London Gazette .
Charles Sydenham Haden was a silk-merchant and vice consul in Lyons. His sister-in-law Isabella Boott either visited her sister frequently or lived in Lyons for some time, and that was where she died in 1892. Mary also visited Isabella, and was recorded in Isabella's London house in the 1871 census, when her age was given as 49 and Isabella's as 39.
Bibliography:
Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980.
The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855-1903, edited by Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp; including The Correspondence of Anna McNeill Whistler, 1855-1880, edited by Georgia Toutziari. Online edition, University of Glasgow, 2004.
London Gazette 1877, 1878 and 1880, at Gazette, , . and issue/24556/page/1250 and issue/24816/page/1169
Boott, Wikitree.
