Titles

Possible titles include:

• 'Portrait, "Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink" ' (1874, Flemish Gallery). 1
• 'Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland' (1980, YMSM). 2

'Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland' is the preferred title.

Stephanie Strother notes that 'Whistler’s frequent use of “flesh” to describe color reflects a racist and exclusionary presumption that skin tone is defined as white or Caucasian.' Since the current catalogue uses Whistler's titles wherever possible, it has been decided to retain his usage in this catalogue raisonné. 3

Description

A full length portrait of a woman, in vertical format. She is standing with her back to the viewer, her face in profile to left, her hands clasped behind her back. Her dress is white with a long pink train falling from the neck. The slope of her shoulders is emphasized by a trim of ribbon and rosettes. The train is decorated with scattered rosettes in white and gold. The neck of the dress is trimmed with grey lace and a band of reddish ribbon. The transparent sleeves are bound with a narrow pink ribbon and end with a ruffle at the wrists. She stands on a white carpet with a woven chequered pattern. The wall behind her is pale pinkish grey with a white dado. At upper left are sprays of white blossom.

Susan Galassi commented on the portrait as follows:

'… the subject and her dress compete for the viewer’s attention. … Mrs. Leyland’s face is shown in profile facing left; her downcast eyes and a slightly down-turned mouth convey a sense of gravity. Her auburn hair – the key color tone in the painting – is arranged simply in two coils on top of her head.

... Her pink gown harmonizes not only with her reddish brown hair, but with her surroundings. Blossoming almond branches cut off at the left by the edge of the painting in the manner of a Japanese print set off the delicacy of the floral appliqués of her dress, while at right a spray of green foliage points to the artist's prominent butterfly signature.' 4

Site

Although the portrait was started in the Leylands' residence, Speke Hall near Liverpool, the setting depicted is Whistler's house in Chelsea at 2 Lindsey Row. According to the Pennells, 'Mrs. Leyland stood in the flesh-colour and yellow drawing room and he designed her gown to harmonize with it.' 5 Susan Galassi adds, 'Whistler created a complete aesthetic environment for Frances Leyland; he designed her dress and the interior of the room as an ensemble.' 6

Sitter

Frances Leyland (1834-1910) was the daughter of a master mariner, Thomas Dawson, of Liverpool. She married the ship-owner and collector Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892) on 23 March 1855.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), who had painted two portraits of Mrs Leyland, including Monna Rosa (1867, Private collection) wrote of Whistler's portrait, 'the figure of Mrs L. a graceful design, I cannot see that it is at all a likeness.' 7

Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936) interviewed the sitter:

'[Mrs Leyland] remembers days when, at the end of the sitting, the portrait looked as if a few hours' work the next day was all it needed. But, in the morning, she would find it scraped down, with the work to be done over again. Notwithstanding the numerous sittings she gave, one of Whistler's models, Maud Franklin ... was called in to pose for the draperies.' 8

Certainly a drawing of Whistler's new model, Maud Franklin (1857-ca 1941) , reproduced above, shows her in similar pose.

Galassi comments on the relationship of artist and model:

'Mrs. Leyland was the liaison between Whistler and his patron, as well as the painter’s confidante and muse. Whistler, in turn, provided her with companionship, amusement, and relief from her hard-driving, difficult husband. The artist’s letters to her during the years he was connected with the family reveal his affection for her. ... There is no evidence that they were lovers, but their close relationship prompted gossip ... Strains in the Leylands’ marriage, which ended in divorce in 1879, were already apparent in the early seventies when Whistler was their "never-ending guest." ' 9

Comments

The portrait is discussed in fascinating detail by Susan Galassi. The fashionable dress is compared to a beautiful Liberty tea gown of 1891. She raises interesting questions about the aesthetic decisions made by the artist and perhaps by the model:

'Why, when the sitter herself expressed her wish to be depicted in a distinctly different mode, perhaps in a gown of her own, did Whistler insist on creating a dress for her and devote so much attention to it? And why did he choose a style that would have been perceived as unconventional? Was it Frances herself who inspired such a garment – or does the gown reflect Whistler’s idealized image of her, or a persona he constructed for her? Was he in fact painting a portrait of Frances Leyland or showcasing his talents as a designer – or an amalgam of the two – and why did he choose to portray her as majestic and remote when she was, by all accounts, lively and accessible?

In the early 1870s, Whistler was at the vanguard of the design-conscious Aesthetic movement with its cult of beauty and focus on the harmonious relationship of furniture, decorative objects, and even clothing with the décor of a room. Whistler took on the challenge of designing a dress for an important client at a time of transition in both art and fashion, and of greater fluidity between them. The Pre-Raphaelite painters had led the way in creating 'artistic dresses' worn by their models and wives, and Whistler's gown belongs in this category. Aestheticism quickly spread from its origins in literature and the fine arts to the applied arts as well: the elevation of design to high art led to the creation of artistic objects including dresses, and dress design became recognized, in the words of a contemporary writer, “as a legitimate area of concern for the artist.”

Mrs. Leyland’s dress may be loosely classified as a tea gown, which has a distinct form and significance in the language of clothing. The tea gown blossomed in England and America in the late 1870s and 1880s as an alternative to the tightly-corseted, highly-structured clothing of mainstream fashion. It emphasized the natural form of the body; loose, flowing lines, simplicity of design, and references to historic and exotic styles were the hallmarks of the new fashion. Mrs. Leyland's gown is situated somewhere between the earlier Pre-Raphaelite artistic dresses and the later modes of Aesthetic attire, which it anticipates in some respects, yet it remains a unique creation made expressly for her to wear in her portrait. Like all of Whistler's work of the period, the costume draws from an eclectic mix of historic traditions and current trends, freely adapted to articulate his ideas of the beautiful, and to assert his modernity – for which fashion was an important signifier. The portrait of Mrs. Leyland presented an opportunity for Whistler to express his artistic aims and complex relationship with his sitter by creating an ideal modern world – a symphony of the arts.' 10

'Women associated with Pre-Raphaelite artists as wives and models, many of them painters, actresses, and literary women, including patrons of the arts, occasionally wore 'artistic' dress. As the wife of Whistler's and Rossetti's patron and Whistler's frequent companion, Frances was connected with this elite group. Whistler signaled this through the dress he designed for her, adapting Pre-Raphaelite ideals of dress to his own aesthetic interests. One painting that Whistler would have known well, and undoubtedly sought to surpass in his portrait, is a painting by Rossetti entitled Monna Rosa depicting a richly-garbed woman with flowers, which Leyland commissioned in 1867. The model … was Frances Leyland … Rossetti appears to have transformed her features to resemble more closely the Pre-Raphaelite type … epitomized by Jane Morris ... in a painting that is more of an allegory of beauty than a portrait ... Rossetti's gem-like work would have served as a challenge for Whistler: he could do no less than paint her in a costume and setting of his own creation. The gown that Whistler would design for Frances, in fact, has affinities with the robe she wears in Monna Rosa in its unstructured form. … The Pre-Raphaelite’s highly finished realism, strong color contrasts, and material opulence are countered by Whistler’s broad manner of painting, subtle, monochromatic tonalities, and simplicity. The gown and décor in the Whistler portrait are subordinate to the harmony of the painting as a whole and to the unadorned beauty of the sitter with her introspective expression. Frances wears no jewelry and her hair is arranged in a simple chignon in a contemporary, everyday style. Furthermore, the type of garment he designed for Frances – a tea gown – was up-to-date.

… the tea gown ... is generally believed to be derived from the French peignoir or robe d’intérieur with which it shared a loose shape, soft lines and often a train. In as early as 1873, Watteau pleats and a loose center front panel appeared in gowns labeled robe d’intérieur and became standard features of the tea gown, often mixed with other revival styles.

In England in the 1870s, the tea gown developed from a house robe, or negligee, into a sophisticated form of hostess gown worn over a light corset for receiving intimate friends. The relative looseness of the garment, and the ease of disrobing it afforded, associated the tea gown in the 1870s with loose morals. It was typically worn in the late afternoon, during the famous "cinq à sept" when lovers met.' 11

'A painting of the period which featured a young woman in a robe d'intérieur – precursor to the tea gown – is Manet's Young Lady in 1866 (Woman with a Parrot) of 1866. It was shown privately to Manet's friends in his studio, and exhibited the following year in his solo exhibition at the Pont de L'Alma. Whistler was in Paris in 1867 ... and would have seen his friend’s show. In Woman with a Parrot, the auburn-haired Victorine ... wears a pink satin gown, which, in its loose shape, glossy fabric, and color, evokes the style of dress seen in Watteau's paintings. ...

Manet, along with the critics Théophile Gautier and the Goncourt brothers, was at the forefront of the revival of Watteau that began in the Romantic period and grew throughout the century ... in his Woman with a Parrot, Victorine in her Watteau gown is indeed ‘stylish’ and up-to-date – a 'young lady in 1866' – as the painting was originally titled.

… Whether Whistler drew directly from Watteau’s art, or from the emerging fashion for Watteau-style dresses in France is a matter of debate. ... Manet’s depiction of Victorine Meurent may figure among Whistler's sources for his portrait of Mrs. Leyland. Or, both artists may have been responding to the same artistic currents, blending the grande luxe of the ancien regime with modernity ...

The tea gown slipped ambiguously between the areas of formal and informal wear and was open to invention and fantasy in its design. Whistler's gown for Frances Leyland with its loose shape, pliable material, pastel color, and fusion of historical references fits in with the early tea gowns of the 1870s. Both ultra feminine and refined, it also carried with it suggestions of intimacy. To clothe an important client, the wife of his patron no less, in attire for private use in a full-length formal portrait was a daring, unexpected gesture. In contrast to the tightly-laced fashion extravaganzas of the Victorian period that compartmentalized and exaggerated the parts of the female body, Whistler's flowing gown, and the pose from behind render Frances Leyland essentially bodiless. ... Her sensuality is embodied in the tender pink dress.' 12