Matthew Robinson Elden

Identity:

Matthew Robinson Elden was an artist. The 1865 marriage certificate names his wife as Marianne Mace. In the 1871 census his age was given as 35, his wife 'Marion' aged 30, and they were living in Chelsea with their two children, Marion aged 4 and baby Matthew.

Life:

Elden, who in 1879 he was living at 69 Mallinson Road, New Wandsworth, in Battersea, London, was friendly with Whistler from the mid 1870s. He was employed by Whistler to keep track of his paintings after his bankruptcy and was in contact with Whistler during his stay in Venice in 1880.

On Whistler's return from Venice, Elden was frequently to be found in his company. Whistler sought to persuade Elden to travel to Jersey and Guernsey with him in 1881, suggesting that he might get a number of watercolours done there and thus earn himself some money [#12818]. Way recalled: 'Whistler always seemed to want to have some one in attendance, as it were, when he was working, and for a long time a mysterious man named Eldon was constantly around him. What he did exactly, or even how he lived, I do not know, but he was entertaining, and seemed generally to make himself useful to Whistler.' Alan Cole noted in his diary on 2 May 1882 that Whistler was 'painting his 'Blue Girl' [Scherzo in Blue: The Blue Girl y226]. Eldon there as a kind of claque calling out splendid on each of J's strokes on canvas'. Whistler referred to him affectionately at this time as 'Eldoni' [#12829].

In 1882 Whistler began a portrait of Elden, Portrait of H. R. Eldon (1) y243. He also made a smaller version, Portrait of H. R. Eldon (2) y244, which, according to Pennell, was sent to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905. According to Walter Sickert, Whistler painted a further portrait of Elden. Portrait of H. R. Eldon (3) y245 was the only one of the three portraits to survive, although it was never finished.

Elden became seriously ill in the 1880s. Pennell, quoting Rennell Rodd, wrote: 'There was a poor fellow who had been a designer for Minton - but his head had given way, and he was already quite mad - used to be there day after day for months, and draw innumerable sketches on scraps of brown paper, cartidge boards, anything - often full of talent but quite mad. Well, Jimmy humoured him and made his last weeks of liberty happy in their way. Eventually he had to be removed to an asylum, and died raving mad.'

Whistler wrote early in 1883 to a mutual friend, Waldo Storey, 'Eldoni at present is hopeless - domesticity and whisky having proved too much -' (GUW #09430). Whether alcoholism or syphilis was the cause is not known, but Elden was committed to the Bethlem lunatic asylum on 19 February 1883 and died on 28 May.

Bibliography:

Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908 ; Sickert, Walter, 'Where Paul and I differ', Art News, no. 14, 10 February 1910, p. 113; Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911 ; Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912 ;

Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 cat. nos.89, 207, 209, 226, 243-5.

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