Provenance

• 1894: bought from Whistler by Alexander Reid (1854-1928) , Glasgow art dealer;
• 1902: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) ;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1231).

Exhibitions

• 1889: probably “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 39) as 'A Rose Note'.
• 1892: possibly Société des Pastellistes français, Goupil, Paris, 1892 (ex cat., see Nude holding a fan [M.1322]).

The New York Herald, 2 March 1889, described a pastel of a nude 'a thin girl lying on a lounge', which may have been this drawing.

It was priced at 80 guineas in 1889, but remained unsold, and was returned to Whistler after the exhibition by Wunderlich's on the SS Servia. 1

By the terms of Freer's will, this work cannot be lent to another venue.