Composition

This is a variation on a theme that Whistler drew in the 1860s and 1870s and returned to in the 1890s, that of a woman tending flowers in a pot.

The model's pose is reminiscent of the left-hand figure in Pink and Grey: Three Figures [YMSM 089], which dates from the late 1860s, and which is also seen in chalk and pastel drawings such as Tillie [M.0367], Study of a Nude [M.0368] and Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve [M.0370] dating from 1870/1873.

Related figures include the pastels r.: Crouching figure in 'The White Symphony: Three Girls'; v.: Standing figure in 'The White Symphony: Three Girls' [M.0359] of 1869/1870, and The Lily [M.0364], showing a figure tending a flowering lily.

The pose is also closely related to that seen in later pastels, such as A Violet Note [M.1395] and Spring [M.1397], which are dated 1893/1895.

A pastel, A nude with a bowl [M.1394], signed with a butterfly, is closely related to this painting, and also dates from the early 1890s. The main difference is that the nude faces right in the pastel instead of left, as in the painting. The pastel is also brighter, with cream and light red on her head-dress and light red on the butterfly, and the elliptical flower pot is empty.

Technique

The wood is unusual: it is made of heavy hardwood, possibly mahogany, about 5 mm thick, and may have come from a piece of furniture, since the verso is polished, varnished and naturally grained. 1 The grain runs vertically.

There is a very thin grey imprimatura on the unprimed board, and this was rubbed back to the reddish wood in places. There is also some earlier diagonal rubbing-down. The colour of the wood shows through where the paint is slightly abraded around the head and bowl, and later varnish makes it appear redder. The panel provided a much smoother surface for painting that even a fine canvas could.

A full technical examination was carried out in February 2020 in the School of Culture and Creative Arts Technical Art History laboratory in the Hunterian at Kelvin Hall. Professors Joyce H. Townsend and Margaret F. MacDonald examined the painting under a microscope. A high resolution camera for infra-red reflectography (IRR) was operated by Tess Visser, a PhD student supervised by Professor Christina Young, assisted by Alicia Hughes, Hunterian curatorial assistant. Images were also made of the verso, and of the recto in normal, raking, and ultraviolet light. The results are summarised here.

The grey background has bone black as the only added pigment, modified by yellow varnish to a greenish grey shade. This grey forms much of the background. Fine, sharply pointed, hard graphite pencil under-drawing is visible for the arms and legs, and may originally have outlined the whole figure. Above her back, where there are several painted outlines, some graphite was picked up by the paint as the pose was altered. The bowl was also outlined, possibly in graphite reinforced with paint. In addition, the body may have been outlined with a brush in a fluid drawing medium, or dark paint, but that was completely scraped out, down to the wood, below her face. 2

The paint is fairly smooth, that for the figure having a slight thickness, giving the impression of a thin megilp-like material. The figure is very thinly painted and has been partly rubbed out and altered. The head was moved to the left and possibly moved down. The arms were originally much higher, and her back was also higher. The trellis is thinly applied, the verticals first and then the horizontals, in rather irregular fashion, and with no preliminary drawing. Its lines stop short of the figure, indicating it was painted at a late stage. The flowers are only lightly indicated over the bare wood, but more attention was given to the pot, outlined on the left with a light stroke of dark grey thinned paint. A similar stroke emphasises the outline of the otherwise unfinished left heel.

The colours are sombre, with shades of greenish grey and low flesh tones relieved only by the pink ribbons on the girl's dark green kerchief or 'Phrygian' cap. A small brush was used here and for the flesh paint, and the bodied appearance of this paint is particularly suggestive of an added medium such as megilp. The green of the cap must be a mixed green made from fine-grained yellow and blue particles, possibly Prussian blue and chrome yellow, sold as a premixed green paint known as ‘chrome green’. The pink ribbon on the green cap is mixed from white, bone black, and probably a rather orange shade of vermilion. 3

Conservation History

The panel is not warped, and is in sound condition. The surface has numerous abrasions. and the glossy varnish, applied vertically over the whole, is somewhat yellowed, particularly at the edges where a frame previously covered 18 mm of the panel at the left side, 12 mm at the top, 19 mm at the right side, and 9 mm at the lower edge.

Microscopical examination of varnish losses at the left edge make it clear that the background was originally a cool grey, mixed from white and bone black. The paint for the flesh is pale, and it would have looked cooler and more pearly when painted. The green of the cap is the area least affected by the yellow tone of the glossy, natural resin type varnish.

The ultraviolet image suggests that the glossy varnish overlies an earlier, likely thinner, varnish that had been applied in the frame and did not reach the outermost edges. Since this composition was not exhibited in Whistler’s lifetime, both of these natural resin-type varnishes are likely to be posthumous. 4

Frame

72.9 x 53.4 x 5.0cm. There is a Chapman Bros Ltd label on the verso, with the address of 241 King's Road, Chelsea.