Provenance

• ca 1890: said to have been bought from Goupil, London art dealers, by 'Mme Katharine Ruetz Jussen', possibly Mrs Jussen, née Elizabeth Catarina Hubertina Barbara Ruetz (1811-1891);
• 1892: said to have passed after her death to her brother, Senor Ruetz, Spain;
• By 1928: bought from his heirs by Sir David McAdam Eccles (1904-1999), Long Island, NY;
• 1928: sold by Eccles to De Hauk & Co., New York;
• 1928: bought from them by the Macbeth Galleries, New York;
• 1928: sold by them through E. & A. Milch, New York, to John Gellatly (1853-1931), Wenatchee, Washington;
• 1929: acquired by the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The early provenance is not clear. The painting itself may date from about 1890, although according to a later owner, G. W. Eccles, it was bought by "Mme Katharine Ruetz Jussen" from Goupil, London dealers, in the early 1880s, and passed in 1892 (after her death) to her brother, Senor Ruetz, a Spanish iron-founder, from whose heirs it was bought by G. W. Eccles. It was sold by Eccles to De Hauk & Co., New York, 1928. 1

Mme Jussen may have been Elizabeth Catarina Hubertina Barbara Ruetz, daughter of Johann Heinrich Ruetz and Petronella Irmgard Siegerborn, born in Germany on 29 May 1811. She emigrated to America in 1848, and married first Jakob Jussen, and secondly E. C. Gaebler. She died on 16 April 1891 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although there is no record of her having a brother, the family was quite widespread, and it is possible the painting went to another relative.

According to the Macbeth Galleries' records, it was bought from De Hauk & Co. by the Macbeth Galleries and sold through E. & A. Milch, New York, to J. A. Gellatly in 1928 for $18,000, whence it was acquired by the National Collection of Fine Arts in the following year.

Exhibitions

• It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.