Provenance

• 1879: at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy, bought by a picture dealer on behalf of the London printer Thomas Way (1837-1915);
• 1881/1896: passed to his son, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London;
• 1907: bought from T. R. Way by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

According to an inscription in the hand of Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890) on the back of a drawing of Elinor, the painting was destroyed by Whistler early in 1879. 1 According to the Pennells, it was among the 'Bundles of rubbish [which] were carried off for a few shillings' at the White House after Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879, 'in such a deplorable condition that nothing now remains but the two pots of flowers which stood on either side of the figure.' 2 It was probably one of the 'unfinished portraits of two of [Leyland's] daughters' that were 'more or less destroyed' by Whistler at the time of the bankruptcy in 1879, according to T. R. Way, and bought by a picture dealer, after F. R. Leyland had refused to take them, on behalf of his father, Thomas Way. T. R. Way hung them in his rooms until Whistler asked him to take them down. In October 1907 C. L. Freer bought from T. R. Way two fragments, 'A Chinese Vase filled with yellow flowers' cut from the right-hand side and 'A Chinese vase, filled with flowers and a large dish' cut from the left-hand side of the canvas, for £210. 3

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.