Composition

In size and subject it is a pair with Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea [YMSM 105].

Technique

It is painted very thinly on a dark ground.

Conservation History

It was cleaned and restored before it was bought by the Musée d'Orsay in 1995.

Frame

1871: Flat Whistler, incised basket weave with painted butterfly.

It has four panels separated by reeding, the outer and inner panels decorated with a small basket-weave design, and the broad central panel with a large basket-weave design; signed with a butterfly and dated ‘1871’.

Whistler wrote to Walter Greaves concerning the newly framed picture in 1871:

'Have they managed to fit in the little gold flat you know that Clay took down to the Gallery and that they wouldn't let him put in the frame, but fixed it in themselves? Does it look all right? They have not taken off too much of the butterfly have they?' 1

The current butterfly is slightly oddly placed and not entirely consistent with the style of butterfly used by Whistler at that time: despite the dated inscription, it is possible that it was added at a later date. It was, however, added before 1911 when the frame was reproduced by the Pennells. 2

It is a pair with Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea [YMSM 105], which is similarly framed.