Titles
Only one basic title is known:
- 'Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of Master Stephen Manuel' (1885, Society of British Artists). 1
- 'Portrait little Manuel' (1892, Whistler). 2
- 'Portrait of Master Stephen Manuel'' and, in deluxe edition, 'Arrangement in Grey, Portrait of Master Stephen Manuel' (1905, ISSPG). 3
- 'Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of Master Stephen Manuel' (1980, YMSM). 4
'Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of Master Stephen Manuel' is the preferred title.
Description
Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of Master Stephen Manuel, Freer Gallery of Art
A head and shoulders portrait of a young boy, in vertical format. He faces the viewer, wearing a grey suit with a broad white collar, and a big round hat with a pale grey feather. He has brown curly hair. The background is a warm greyish beige.
Sitter
Stephen Manuel (1880-1954) , CBE, became Chief of Section of Raw Materials Department and Adviser on East Indian Tanned Hides and Skins. His mother, Sophia (Eustratius) Ionides (Mrs M. B. Manuel) (1853-1905), was the sister of Whistler's sister-in-law, Helen ('Nellie') Euphrosyne Whistler (1849-1917) (née Ionides). Stephen Manuel later married one of his cousins, Zoe Ionides (1877-1973).
W. R. Sickert, Portrait of Stephen Manuel, etching, Freer Gallery of Art, FSC-GR-703
One of Sickert's first etchings, Portrait of Stephen Manuel, was done at the time Whistler was painting Stephen's portrait: it is 6.3 x 6.2 cm, very much smaller than the painting. 5
Notes:
1: Winter Exhibition, Society of British Artists, London, 1885 (cat. no. 45).
2: Whistler to D. C. Thomson, [4/11 January 1892], GUW #06795.
3: 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. 51).
4: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 321).
5: Troyen 2: impressions in the Fitzwilliam Museum and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2007.49.445). Bomberg, Ruth, Walter Sickert: Prints, A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 2000 (cat. no. 76, II).
Last updated: 14th November 2020 by Margaret
