Provenance

Unknown.

Exhibitions

• 1893: 3rd exhibition, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1893 (cat. no. 152) as 'A Portrait'.

Works by Whistler and his wife Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896) were exhibited in the show, and were described in The Spectator, 3 June 1893, p. 17, as follows:

'Whistler is almost put out. Sarasate suffers, while a particularly Jimmy presentment of the Prince of Wales, his next neighbour, seems made for the place. Besides this Sarasate, Whistler sends a picture of a studio interior. He himself is represented painting; two women's figures are indicated in the corner; above are shelves of blue china and a mirror. The whole is a lovely piece of suggestion and colour. A small and charming study has been not unnaturally catalogued as a third Whistler, but is restored, by a note on the frame, to "R. Birnie." '

It is absolutely certain that the painting was indeed by Beatrice Whistler, who exhibited as 'Rix Birnie', the pseudonym based on her nick name 'Trix' or 'Trixie', and her maiden name (Birnie Philip). Whistler had asked Stephen Richards (1844-1900) to clean the portraits for the SPP including Arrangement in Black: Portrait of Señor Pablo de Sarasate [YMSM 315], Whistler in his Studio [YMSM 063], a portrait of Whistler as a child by William Boxall (1800-1879) (now in the Hunterian) and a 'Small panel by Mrs Whistler.' 1 The 'small panel' has not been identified. Most of her very Whistlerian portraits were given to the University of Glasgow by her younger sister, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). 2