Provenance

• 1896/1903: possibly sold by Whistler through Lawrie & Co.;
• 1904: with Lawrie & Co., who are said to have sold it to Adolph de Meyer (1868-1946);
• 1905: owned by the Baron de Meyer and/or his wife, Olga Alberta Caracciolo (1871–1930/1931), Baroness de Meyer;
• 1907: sold by the Baron de Meyer to the Macbeth Gallery, New York, 23 February 1907;
• 1914: bought by Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, 12 January 1914.

Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938) published the painting in 1904 as owned by Lawrie & Co. 1 According to the art dealer William Macbeth, Baron de Meyer bought this painting from Whistler through the art dealers 'Laurie [sic] and Company'. 2

Adolf de Meyer came to live in London in 1896, but it is not certain when he acquired this painting. He was married to Olga Alberta Caracciolo (1871–1930/1931), who is said to have posed to Whistler for Arrangement in Pink, Red and Purple [YMSM 324], and who owned Study of a Girl's Head and Shoulders [YMSM 486]. In 1905 Study in Brown was lent to the London Whistler Memorial Exhibition with the Baroness de Meyer named as lender.

According to Macbeth Gallery records, the painting was sold by Baron de Meyer to them in 1907 for $7500, and sold by Macbeth to the Hackley Art Gallery in 1914 for $6750. The local paper reported that there was opposition to the purchase by some members of the local school board but the purchase was eventually approved. 3 According to the museum website:

'The museum’s first director, Raymond Wyer, was a man of unique foresight. Early art acquisitions selected by Wyer included the very best world-class artists. The most notorious of Wyer’s acquisitions was a painting by James M. Whistler, Study in Rose and Brown, purchased for $6,750. It was thought by some to be scandalous to pay that kind of money for “a picture that is hard to see”. In fact, the furor over this purchase was the cause of Raymond Wyer’s resignation in protest in July 1916. Today, Study in Rose and Brown is one of the true treasures in the collection.' 4

Furthermore, the website comments, 'When it was purchased by the MMA at the close of the Armory Show, the painting was at the forefront of avant-garde modernism.' 5

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 22) as 'Study in Brown'.

No exhibition is recorded in Whistler's lifetime.

It was lent by the Baroness de Meyer to the Whistler memorial exhibition in London in 1905.