Frederick Jameson

Identity:

Frederick Jameson was an architect and musician. He was the son of Mary Ann Jameson, née Gurney, and William Kingsbury Jameson, merchant. Jameson's wife Ellen was present at his death at Saxonbury Lodge, Frant, Ticehurst in 1916.

Life:

Whistler knew both Jameson and his wife. In 1868/69 Whistler stayed at his rooms at 62 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury. There, in Jameson's studio during February and March 1868 Whistler painted Milly Jones, possibly for Symphony in White, No. 3 y061. It was perhaps during this period that Jameson acquired Crepuscule in Opal: Trouville y067 from Whistler.

In January 1892 Whistler requested that he might borrow the picture in order to reframe it in one of his new frames, declaring 'They are very beautiful - and your picture will gain five times in stateliness'.

Jameson was an accomplished musician and in later years translated the libretti of Richard Wagner. Alice Comyns Carr, wife of the art critic Joseph Comyns Carr, also remembered how Jameson used to often hold theatricals at his rooms in Great Russell Street which he shared with her brother. He was a member of The Arts Club from 1865 to 1895.

Bibliography:

GPO birth certificate, Sub-district of Lambeth, County of Surrey, 1839, and death certificate, Sub-district of Wadhurst, County of East Susses, 1916; Jameson, Frederick, Art's Enigma, London and New York, 1911; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 ; [Comyns Carr, Alice Vansittart,] J. Comyns Carr: Stray Memories by His Wife, London, 1920, pp. 2-3.