Provenance

• 1899: possibly bought from the artist by the Paris art dealer Charles Hessele (fl. 1892-1914);
• 1899/1900: with Gaston Bernheim-Jeune (1870-1953), Paris.
• 1901/1904: owned by James Staats Forbes (1823-1904), London;
• 1904-1905: with the executors of J. S. Forbes.
• Date unknown: acquired by the American portrait painter Romaine Brooks (née Beatrice Romaine Goddard) (1874-1970), Capri and Paris.
• By 1921: with Dikran Kelekian (1868–1951), art dealer, New York;
• 1923: sold at auction, Kelekian sale, American Art Association, 20-31 January 1923 (lot 131) 'Chelsea Girl', bought by Kennedy & Co., New York.
• By 1926: owned by Alfred Hull Ramage (1888-1926) of Oil City, PA (who died in Newport News, Virginia, on 17 April 1926.
• 1928: sold by Jacques Seligmann & Co., New York, to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), New York, 28 March 1928;
• 1943: bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum.

In August 1898 Whistler told his manager at the Company of the Butterfly, Christine Anderson (Christiana Barrett, Mrs C. L. Baldwyn, Mrs C. A. M. Anderson) (b. 1865/1866), to suggest that Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920) might like to make an offer for 'The "Red Feather".' 1 There is, however, no record of a response from Eddy.

The subsequent history of the painting is not entirely clear. In July 1899 Whistler mentioned that a man in Paris 'has just now carried off seven paintings … which properly framed and signed … go to make a mighty pretty little collection.' 2 Whistler also noted that he had sold several pictures, including 'The Red Feather', to 'Hessel', who was probably the art dealer Charles Hessele (fl. 1892-1914). 3 Hessele in his turn sold some to the Paris dealer George Bernheim, but (according to E. G. Kennedy), when one was sold to a collector in London, Whistler 'noticed how incomplete they were' and tried to retrieve them, until Bernheim threatened to sue Whistler and the artist capitulated. 4

It is possible that the painting was bought directly from Bernheim by J. S. Forbes, and that he then lent it to the exhibition of the Society of Portrait Painters in 1901. This would have given Whistler the opportunity to see it again, and may have inspired the abortive attempt to retrieve his 'incomplete' paintings.

After Forbes' death the picture was put up for sale by his executors. On 7 June 1904 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) left an offer of £500 with the London art dealer William Stephen Marchant (1868-1925) for 'Girl with a red feather', but this was not accepted. 5 The painting was lent by Forbes' executors to the Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 4).

The subsequent provenance is also unclear. The painting was later in the collection of the painter Romaine Brooks, and was bought from her by Bernheim, who sold it to the New York dealer Kelekian, who lent it to an exhibition in Brooklyn in 1921 (cat. no. 225). The photograph reproduced below shows it at that time.

It was sold at auction by the American Art Association, New York, 30-31 January 1923 (lot 131) and bought by Kennedy. According to museum records, it passed at some time to Alfred Ramage, Oil City, PA. It was bought from the New York art dealer J. Seligmann by G. L. Winthrop on 28 March 1928 for $18,500, and bequeathed by him to Harvard University.

Exhibitions

• 1901: Eleventh Exhibition held at the New Gallery, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1901 (cat. no. 76) as 'Violet and Blue – The Red Feather'.
• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 4) as 'Girl with a Red Feather'.

It received modest press coverage in 1901, the Globe, for instance, calling it a 'pretty harmony in low tones' and the London Daily News similarly describing it as 'low in tone, yet brims with colour'. 6