Provenance

UPDATE:

• By 1905: owned by Henry Graves (1806-1892) , London art dealer and publisher.
• Date unknown: according to a label, owned by the American violinist Miss Nettie Carpenter (Nettie Van Den Berg Carpenter, b. ca 1871) who was married briefly to (1) Leo Stearn, in 1891, and (2) James Harrison Brockbank, London, in 1896.
• 1926: sold at auction, from the collection of Otto Gutekunst (ca 1865-after 1939) , at Christie's, London, 23 April 1926 (lot 21) as 'Count Alvarez after Velasquez', bought by 'Sampson', London art dealer.
• 1957: bought from H. W. Arthurton (possibly Hugh Wells Arthurton, 1900-1990) by Colnaghi's, London dealers, on 3 April 1957 (#22086);
• 1957: sold to Edward Brian Seago (1910-1974) on 11 April;
• 1974: bequeathed to Peter Seymour (fl. 1952) , Norfolk;
• 1983: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 4 March 1983 (lot 30, repr.) as 'Souvenir of Velasquez, the Duke of Olivares'.
• By 1987: owned by Leandro Borghi, Milan;
• 1987: with the Coe Kerr Gallery, New York.
• After 1995: with the Hammer Galleries, New York.
• Date unknown: private collection.

There are big gaps in the known provenance.

'Nettie' or 'Netty' could have been born Agnes, Annette, Janet, Jeanette. Nettie Carpenter knew Whistler (who disapproved of her) and the impresario Otto Goldschmidt, and was said to have studied the violin under Pablo de Sarasate y Navascues (1844-1908). It is perfectly possible that Goldschmidt acquired the drawing directly from her.

Her biography is difficult to untangle. In 1891 Leo Lawrence Stern married Nettie Carpenter. In 1895 he successfully petitioned for divorce naming his wife as Nettie van den Berg Stern, and citing Harrison Brockbank. She married Brockbank in the following year. The 1901 UK census records her as 30 years old, born in New York, and married to James H. Brockbank, living with two Wagnerian children (Siegfried, Iseult) in Hammersmith, London. They separated in 1904. She continued to perform as a violinist under the title 'Madame Nettie Carpenter' until at least 1924.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 653).

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 176) as 'Souvenir of Velasquez'.