Provenance

• 1910: it was one of 'about fifty' canvases sold by Walter Thomas Spencer (1864-1936), a second-hand bookseller at 27 New Oxford Street, to Messrs Dowdeswell, London art dealers, in September 1910;
• 1910: seen by Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936) and Joseph Pennell (1860-1926) on 15 September 1910, when Dowdeswell took them to a man in Camden Town who was restoring some canvases.
• 1944: according to the London art dealer, Max de Beer (1898-1974), he bought it from the heirs of a London collector and sold it to Leeds City Art Gallery in 1944.

Exhibitions

Three early exhibition records stuck on the reverse of the painting are unsatisfactory, to say the least. One label reads 'GROSVENOR GALLERY / PICTURE EXHIBITION.' with the 'Title of Picture' written as 'Harmony in white & blue', but it cannot be found in the exhibition catalogues of the Grosvenor Gallery.

Another label is for the 'London International Exhibition Society / FOUNDED .. 1881 /... UNITED ART GALLERY'. The United Arts Gallery (not Art) was founded in a new building at 116 New Bond Street by the London International Exhibition Society in 1881 to encourage young artists 'by affording them facilities for study in the great Continental academies, supplying them with grants of money.' 1 It was a short-lived venue, with exhibitions of mainly European works in 1881 and 1882, after which, due to the illness of the manager, the lease was transferred to Messrs Goupil in 1882, and the remaining stock sold at auction by Messrs Foster on 18 April 1883. 2

Another label on the painting suggests that it was in an exhibition shortly after Whistler's death in 1903, but no record of this exhibition has been found and Whistler's name is misspelt. The label appears to be a forgery: it reads as follows:

'EXHIBITION / OF / PAINTINGS, WATERCOLOURS, PASTELS, ETCHINGS / and LITHOGRAPHS, / BY THE LATE JAMES McNIELL [sic] WHISTLER / First President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers.'

A similar combination of labels is seen on several paintings that were formerly attributed to Whistler, including Young woman in a white dress [YMSM 126b], which bears a certain family resemblance to this portrait. Some of these similarly labelled canvasses may have been based on paintings destroyed by Whistler, and reworked by other hands, but others appear to have nothing to do with Whistler at all.

It is possible that Walter Greaves (1846-1930) was involved in the 'repair', 'restoration' or repainting of these canvases. Several of them, however, do not appear to have anything to do with Whistler at all.