Composition

Arrangement in Black: Girl Reading, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study: Seated Figure, Freer Gallery of Art

Reading, lithograph, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Rosenwald Collection

The costume and composition are closely related to a portrait in chalk of Maud Franklin (1857-1939), Study: Seated Figure [M.0694], and two lithographs, probably done about 1879, one of them being Reading c017.

Technique

Arrangement in Black: Girl Reading, Metropolitan Museum of Art

It is thinly painted, with slightly spiky brushwork, rather more jerky than Whistler's usual work, though perfectly consistent over the panel. It is possible that it has slightly darkened.

The Metropolitan Museum catalogue describes it as 'Constructed of quickly applied dabs of paint, the woman can be discerned only from changes in color tones and variations of brushstroke. In many areas the distinction between figure and background is obscure.' 1

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Arrangement in Black: Girl Reading, Metropolitan Museum of Art

After the painting was bought by J. C. Bancroft it was framed by Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892), Whistler's London frame-maker, before being sent to Boston on 27 June 1891. 2 The frame bears Grau's signature on the verso. 3