Composition

Whistler prepared a congratulatory Address from the Society of British Artists to Queen Victoria (1819-1901) on the occasion of her Jubilee in 1887. The drawing on the verso of this sheet shows a ship in full sail, sailing into the sunset.

The final version of the composition, (a) Monogram 'VR'; (b) Address to Queen Victoria; (c) Royal Coat of Arms [M.1132], contained a more stylised ship.

Technique

The woman in profile, wearing a low cut dress, was drawn with fine pointed, twitchy pen work, with little patches of shading and cross hatching; behind her, the jerky vertical shading of a house at a corner looks like certain Whistler drawings (i.e. Nocturne [M.0912]) and etchings (The Dance House: Nocturne [455], Little Nocturne, Amsterdam [456]). At the top of the page, the tall doors, with a woman and child in front, were roughly drawn, again, mostly with vertical lines, the design a little reminiscent of Whistler's etchings of Tours and Bourges (Windows, Bourges [398], Courtyard, Rue P. L. Courier, Tours [391], dating from the Whistler's honeymoon in 1888. This raises the possibility that some of these drawings – particularly the head of a woman – were by Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896).

Conservation History

The sketches on the recto are small, and detailed, drawn on thick paper which has been folded in half horizontally.