Titles

The recorded titles reflect considerable changes in the portrait:

• 'Harmony in Amber and Black' (1877, Grosvenor Gallery). 1
• ' "Arrangement in Grey & Black," No 2' (ca 1881, Whistler). 2
• 'Portrait of Florence Leyland' (1910, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). 3
• 'Portraits of Maud (Destroyed)' and 'Florence Leyland' (1911, Pennell). 4
• 'Portrait of Miss Florence Leyland' (1980, YMSM). 5

It has been convincingly argued that the portrait, in its original version, was exhibited as 'Harmony in Amber and Black' at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877. 6 This is discussed further under EXHIBITIONS.

The title written by Whistler about 1881 on a photograph in the Lucas Collection, reproduced above, is misleading, because Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle [YMSM 137] was exhibited under that title in 1874. Nevertheless the portrait of Florence Leyland in its original form may have been considered one of a series of 'Arrangements in Grey and Black'.

To avoid confusion, 'Portrait of Miss Florence Leyland' is the preferred title.

Description

A full-length portrait in vertical format. It shows a young woman in a light grey dress with lighter grey ruff-like collar and cuffs, and a conspicuous black bow just above her waist. She wears a black hat with a grey feather, black jabots and gloves, and holds a handkerchief in her right hand. She stands against a black background.

Sitter

Florence Leyland (1859-1921) , born on 2 September 1859, was the second oldest daughter of Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892) and Frances Leyland (1834-1910). She married the subject painter Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1836-1904) in 1884.

There are many pastel drawings of the sitter, including that illustrated above, most of them in the Freer Gallery of Art and the Hunterian, Glasgow, but none which relates to this portrait in its final state. A drypoint, dating from 1873 (Florence Leyland [136]), shows her still in short dresses.

When the break with Leyland occurred in 1876, she would have been seventeen. As it stands, the costume suggests a slightly later date. When Joseph Pennell (1860-1926) was in touch with Mrs Leyland in 1908, she said 'her daughter was tall at the time the picture was painted and about seventeen', but, Pennell wrote, 'I am still sure Maude's head rather than Miss Leyland's is on the figure.' 7 The photograph of the portrait in its incomplete state (cited above) was reproduced by the Pennells as a portrait of 'Maud' and the features were clearly at that time those of Maud Franklin (1857-ca 1941) . 8 Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936) checked with the sitter and her family on the portrait, in its later condition, and its history:

'October 14th, 1908. Called on Mrs. Leyland. ... I asked her especially about the picture in the Brooklyn Museum, which is catalogued as a portrait of Florence Leyland, and which Joseph, who has just seen it, thinks a portrait of Maud. She had forgotten it, thought that her children posed to Whistler only when quite young. But she asked Mrs. Val Prinsep, who says it is her portrait. She stood for it when she was seventeen or eighteen, and Mrs. Leyland's description of the dress and details agrees exactly with Joseph's. He is anxious to let Mr. Goodyear, the Curator of the Museum, know about it.' 9