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

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Portrait of Thomas Winans

Portrait of Thomas Winans dates from 1854 or 1855. 1

On 5 August 1900 Whistler told Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936): 'Before I left America I painted portraits of Annie Denny, my cousin, and Tom Winans.' 2 Whistler stayed at Winans' Baltimore villa, 'Alexandroffsky', in 1854 and again in 1855. 3 However, Winans' journal makes no mention of a portrait. 4


                Winans' villa 'Alexandroffsky', Baltimore, photo, Maryland Historical Society
Winans' villa 'Alexandroffsky', Baltimore, photo, Maryland Historical Society

Nor does a photograph of Winans' salon at 'Alexandroffsky' appear to show a portrait by Whistler, although there are several small works that are impossible to identify. The photograph does include a portrait of the elderly Ross Winans (1795-1877) by Francis Augustus Lathrop (1849-1909) at right, and Whistler's Wapping [YMSM 035] on an easel to left of centre. 5

Notes:

1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 3).

2: Pennell 1921C [more] , p. 171.

3: Pressley 1972 [more] , at pp. 134-35.

4: Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD.

5: Toutziari, Georgia, Anna Matilda Whistler's correspondence: An annotated edition, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2002, online at http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3779.

Last updated: 16th February 2019 by Margaret