The Boy in a Cloak dates from the late 1890s, between 1896 and 1900. 1

The Boy in a Cloak, The Hunterian

Brun et or: De race, The Hunterian

It is dated from its relationship to another portrait of the same sitter, Brun et or: De race [YMSM 511], and to portraits of the model's brother and sister, The Little Faustina [YMSM 510] and Vert et or: Le Raconteur [YMSM 513].

Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920) wrote in 1903: 'Some years ago [Whistler] showed a visitor several heads of Italian children, each about ten or twelve, by sixteen or eighteen inches in size. With them was a three-quarter length of one of the children'; Whistler priced the portraits at 600 guineas each and the visitor wanted to buy the lot (four in number) but Whistler would not let them go, on the pretence that they were unfinished.' 2