Portrait of Sir Henry Cole dates from 1876. 1

The sitter's son, Alan Summerly Cole (1846-1934), recorded in his diary on 19 May 1876:

'J. W. called for my father - I went round later and in two hours J. W. had made a strong commencement upon a nearly life size portrait of my father. Looking at it reflected in glass and how figure stood well within the frame.' 2

According to the Pennells, it was one of the 'large six-foot full-length portraits' bought by the London printer Thomas Way (1837-1915) after Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879, and returned to the artist much later, probably at the time of Way's final settlement with Whistler in August 1897. 3

Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), the artist's executrix, told the Pennells that it was burned. 4