Provenance

• 1894/1895: given by Whistler to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942);
• By 1906: sold to Edgar J. Hesslein (1864-1938);
• 1906: sold in January to Macbeth Galleries, New York;
• 1907: sold on 2 February by Macbeth Gallery and Knoedler, New York art dealers, to John Howard Whittemore (1837-1910), Naugatuck;
• 1912: sold back to Knoedler's (ref. #12670);
• 1924: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 28 July 1924 (lot 79), and bought by Hugh Blaker (1873-1936), London art dealer, for £136.10.0;
• 1928: auctioned at Christie's, London, 6 July 1928 (lot 117) but bought in at 130gns;
• 1936: bequeathed to Blaker's sister, Miss Blaker;
• 1943, May: sold by her to Eardley Knollys (1902-1991), London;
• 1960, October: sold by him to the Piccadilly Gallery, London;
• 1961: bought from Knoedler's, New York, by the Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum on 10 May 1961.

In 1900 Sickert wrote to Florence Pash Humphrey Holland (1860-1951) asking if she had 'taken care for me' of a canvas that 'Whistler in a then fit of good humour said I could have', and later he asked her to sell it. 1 The subsequent history is not totally clear. According to the Macbeth stockbooks it was bought from Sickert by E. J. Hesslein, who sold it on 18 January 1907 to the Macbeth Galleries; it was valued at $1800 and immediately sold, possibly through Knoedler's, to J. H. Whittemore on 2 February 1907. 2 Whittemore sold it back to Knoedler's in January 1912, and it was apparently still with Knoedler's in London in April 1923 (their a/c #12670). It was auctioned at Christie's on 28 July 1924 (lot 79) and bought by Hugh Blaker, a painter and art dealer, for £136.10.0. Blaker lent it to exhibitions in Rusholme in 1929 (cat. no. 36) and Hereford in 1930 (cat. no. 27) as 'Mrs. Beaumont'.

Exhibitions

• It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.