Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Portrait of a boy

Sitter


                    Portrait of a boy, Colby College Museum of Art
Portrait of a boy, Colby College Museum of Art

This may be Rémy Granville Mignot (1861-1927) , the son of the South Carolina-born landscape painter, Louis-Rémy Mignot (1831-1870), a friend of the Whistlers. He married Zairah C. Harris of Baltimore and their son, Rémy Granville Mignot, was born in Baltimore. Louis-Rémy Mignot died prematurely in Brighton leaving his widow and son in poverty; his widow organised a memorial exhibition in Paris in 1876.

By 1868 the family was in England and Rémy remembered his father taking him with Whistler, William McNeill Whistler (1836-1900) and Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) to see 'Blue-Gown' win the Derby. 1

Rémy Granville Mignot married Hilda C. Bradley (1897-1950) and they had two children, Marjorie Cordelia (1897-1950) and Brian Boyse (1902-1967) before being divorced in 1906. With his second wife, Edith Constance Mignot, he had another son, Adrian St Rémy Mignot (1909-1975). Like his father, Rémy Granville Mignot was an artist, but was not very successful; he died in Stepney, England. 2

Notes:

1: Reminiscence in an unidentified press-cutting, according to a note labelled 'M.A.P., 1 August 1903, p. 133', GUL Whistler PC, WPP.

2: Coffey, John W., 'Louis Rémy Mignot', Find a Grave website at https://www.findagrave.com; see also https://www.ancestry.co.uk website, and Katherine E. Manthorne, with John W. Coffey and David Moltke-Hansen, The Landscape Paintings of Louis Rémy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad, Washington, DC, 1996).

Last updated: 3rd June 2021 by Margaret