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Connoisseurs in a studio, private collection

Artist's studio, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Family tradition names the artist as James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) , and the 'connoisseurs' as the sons of Johnson Hellen (1800-1867), a lawyer in Washington, DC. However, the men shown in the drawing appear too old for even the eldest of Hellen's large family: Benjamin Johnson Hellen would have been 24 or 25 years old and G. Clifton Hellen, 18 or 19. One of the figures, a bearded man in a hat, appears in anothert drawing, Artist's studio [M.0185].