Titles

Only one title have been suggested:

• ' "The Lilly" including the "Little Red Glove" ' (1902, C. L. Freer). 1
• 'The Little Red Glove' (1902, Whistler). 2
• 'The Little Red Glove' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). 3
• 'The Little Red Glove' (1980, YMSM). 4

Description

The Little Red Glove, Freer Gallery of Art

A half-length portrait of a girl, in vertical format. She is turned very slightly to the left (her right). She wears a white blouse, and sits with her arms crossed. Her left hand, wearing a light red glove, clasps her right upper arm. Several strands of a red coral bead necklace are round her neck, under the high frilled neck of the blouse. She has a fringe and shoulder-length red hair, and wears a russet red cap, all set against a similar red background.

Sitter

Lilian ('Lily') Pamington (b. 1887/1888). Whistler painted several portraits of Lillie Pamington, starting in 1898 or 1899. This is by far the lightest in tone and brightest in colour: see, for instance, Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!' [YMSM 464], and Girl in Black [YMSM 470].

Comments

David Curry makes the comparison of this portrait with a drawing by Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), Self-portrait at 13 (1584, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna). 5 A photograph of this came with Whistler's estate to the University of Glasgow, but the source and date of the photograph is not absolutely certain. 6 The photographs in the Whistler collection came to the University from Whistler's sister-in-law Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) and although some – such as photographs of works by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660) – can be conclusively linked to Whistler, others could have been collected by any member of the Birnie-Philip or Whistler family.