Provenance

• 1892: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 28 May 1892 (lot 1) as 'A Lady, seated in a chair'.
• 1903-1904: with William Stephen Marchant (1868-1925) , London dealer.
• 1968: 'Mrs. Leyland' was sold in February by the Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Munich.

When this was sold in 1892, Whistler commented:

'The drawings in the Leyland sale can only be very slight notes on brown paper left by accident at Speke Hall - or given carelessly to the children - with the exception perhaps of the pen and ink of the back view of a lady - This I fancy might be a sketch I did of Mrs. Leyland - but you must be careful - for it was reproduced by photograph - & I don't remember whether I had the original drawing and this would only be a facsimile - The late Mr Leyland never bought anything of mine of this kind at all.' 1

The provenance is minimal: it is possible that the drawing was in France for some years after 1904, and it was certainly in Germany by 1968.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 545).