Provenance

• Date unknown: acquired by Beatrice Winans (Comtesse de Béarn) (1884-1907) , St Petersburg and, later, 123 rue St Dominique, Paris;
• 1913: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 9 May 1913 (lot 184), and bought by Wallis, London dealer;
• 1913: sold by David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) for the Goupil Gallery to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) , Detroit, in June 1913;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Beatrice Winans (Comtesse de Béarn) (1884-1907) was a Revillon and thus related to the artist. It is quite possible that the picture came to her by family descent, but there is no record of it before 1897.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1296).

Exhibitions

• 1897: Probably English and German Watercolours, Schtiglitz School, Saint Petersburg, 1897 (cat. no. 126) as 'Woman with a child'.

• 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. 41) as 'Draped Figure and Cupid'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 92).

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