Titles

The suggested titles are as follows:

• 'le petit tableau de la princesse en son boudoir Rose et gris' (1897, Whistler). 1
• 'Mademoiselle Geneviève Mallarmé' (1960, Arts Council). 2
• 'Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé' (1980, YMSM). 3

The preferred title, 'Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé', is based on Whistler's description of the subject in 1897, cited above.

Description

Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé, private collection

A small portrait in upright format of a young woman seated. She wears a pale pink and grey dress with puff sleeves, and a satin ribbon around her tiny waist. She sits on a white-painted wooden chair, leaning on the arms. A fireplace is just visible at right.

Sitter

Stéphane (on left) and Geneviève Mallarmé (on right), photograph, GUL Whistler PH1/161

Geneviève Mallarmé (Mme Edmond P. C. Bonniot) (1864-1919) (1864-1919), was the only daughter of Whistler's friend, the poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) and his wife Maria-Christina Mallarmé née Gerhard (1835-1910).

Louise Bonniot (m. 1921), second wife of the sitter's widower, who inherited the portrait, described Whistler as 'ce grand peintre que Stéphane Mallarmé aimait et admirait profondiment.' 4