Provenance

• By 1879: Edward William Hooper (1839-1901), Boston;
• 1901: bequeathed to his daughter Fanny Hooper Curtis (1877-1963), wife of Greely Stevenson Curtis (1871-1947).
• 1950: bought from Charles D. Childs (1906-1993) of Childs Gallery, Boston art dealer, by Knoedler, New York art dealers, 21 September 1950 (Knoedler #A4430, A7104);
• 1956: sold to Norman Bailey Woolworth (1901-1962), New York, 3 January 1956.
• ca 1965: exhibited by Knoedler's, New York.
• By 1972: Thomas Mellon Evans (1910-1997);
• 1998: sold at auction from the T. M. Evans Collection, Christie's, New York, 21 May 1998 (lot 25).
• 2018: Present whereabouts unknown.

Hooper owned an early watercolour by Whistler, Sketch [M.0039] and a later oil, A Red Note: Fête on the Sands, Ostend [YMSM 366]. He commissioned Whistler to paint his daughter in 1890 (Portrait of Ellen Sturgis Hooper [YMSM 391]). Although there is no reference in their correspondence to this much earlier painting, it appears that they shared a mutual friend, Edward Lawrence Hyde (1835-1917), who was interested in Whistler's early career.

Exhibitions

• 1879: Second Annual Exhibition, Society of American Artists, Kurtz Gallery, Madison Square, New York, 1879 (cat. no. 117) as 'Interior'.
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 49) as 'Interior'.

It was lent by Edward William Hooper (1839-1901), Boston, to the Second Annual Exhibition of the Society of American Artists, in 1879. Thus it was one of the first paintings attributed to Whistler to be exhibited in New York. The presence of 'a small interior with figure' in the exhibition was noted by the New York Herald on 3 March 1879. 1