Provenance

• 1884: given by Whistler to Alexander Johnston Cassatt (1839-1906);
• 1906: on his death, passed by family descent to his daughter Elsie Foster Cassatt, Mrs Plunkett Stewart (1875-1931) and thence to her daughter Doris Lurman Stewart, Mrs W. P. Wear (1910-2003) and her husband, William Potter Wear (1904-1985), of Penllyn, PA., and later of Ceciltown, MD, and to their family;
• Date unknown: sold from a private collection to a private collector;
• 2015: bought by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Whistler described the picture as a present given to A. J. Cassatt. 1

Exhibitions

• World's Columbian Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, Chicago, 1893 (cat. no. 744) as 'The Chelsea Girl'.
• Sixty-third Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1893 (cat. no. 26) as "The Chelsea Girl'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 48).

On 21 September 1893 Whistler complained about the hanging of his paintings at the World's Columbian Exhibition at Chicago:

'They are clearly scattered about the building and lost as much as possible … They have on the other hand put prominently to the fore the girl (my present to Mr Cassatt) as though such were my completed work - sent by me as a representative finished picture! -

... of course it is a damn fine thing - only I should certainly never have proposed to send it to the Chicago place for the hordes of foolish people to look upon! I ought to have been consulted.' 2

Nevertheless it went on the Philadelphia, where it hung conspicuously on a wall with Arrangement in Black and Brown: The Fur Jacket [YMSM 181], La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine [YMSM 050], and Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell [YMSM 242] and works by other artists. 3

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/15

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/20

These photographs show the painting hanging in the 1904 Memorial Exhibition in Boston.