Provenance

• 1870/1875: commissioned by the sitter's father, William Cleverly Alexander (1840-1916) , London;
• 1879: acquired by Thomas Way (1837-1915) at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy;
• 1897/1898: returned to Whistler, possibly in 1897, and by him to Alexander by the following year;
• 1916: bequeathed by W. C. Alexander to the National Gallery, London, with life interest to the sitter, Agnes Mary ('May') Alexander (1862-1950) ;
• 1950: transferred to the Tate Gallery (later Tate Britain).

Whistler acknowledged the payment of £50 on account for the portrait from Alexander in February 1875. 1 However, Alexander did not receive the painting until over twenty years later.

According to Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), as quoted by Pennell, the canvas was one of several acquired at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy by his father. the London printer Thomas Way (1837-1915) and returned much later to Whistler:

'Some years later on, Thomas Way gave him back one roll of large six-foot full-length portraits: the Sir Henry Cole., a Miss May Alexander, three Miss Leylands. ... Of another in riding habit, a drawing reproduced in M. Duret's Whistler, T. R. Way said was a sketch, though it looks to us more like the Mrs. Cassatt.' 2

Presumably it was one of the portraits returned by 10 August 1897 after Whistler had quarrelled with the Ways, as part of their final settlement. 3 Miss May Alexander [YMSM 127] was exhibited in 1898, and a letter from Whistler to W. C. Alexander in 1899 suggests that it had only recently been restored to him (Whistler wrote 'Now that you have discovered a second picture in the portrait of your daughter Miss May'). 4

It was on loan to Tate Gallery from 1913, and was bequeathed by W. C. Alexander to the National Gallery, London, in 1916, with a life interest to the sitter, who died in 1950. The portrait was transferred to the Tate Gallery on her death (it was on loan to Leighton House, London, for a period from 1980).

Exhibitions

• 1898: 8th exhibition, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1898 (cat. no. 5) as 'Miss May Alexander'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 19) as 'Portrait of Agnes Mary, Miss Alexander'.
• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 109) as 'Portrait of Agnes Mary, Miss Alexander'.

In 1892 Whistler appears to have thought the portrait suitable for exhibition in the World's Columbian Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, Chicago, 1893, but eventually it was not included. 5

In 1898, he allowed it to be exhibited at the Grafton Gallery. The Athenaeum criticized it for being 'unnecessarily life size ... an experimental study ... [with] little modelling and little solidity.' 6 However, another critic praised its delicacy and restraint, calling it 'a harmony in grey and gold', and comparing it with another exhibit, the portrait of Astruc by Edouard Manet (1832-1883), which by contrast 'seems almost brutal in its uncompromising realism'. It was, according to this critic, conspicuously displayed:

'Mr Whistler himself is here, in the first room, which, as someone said to us, the Hanging Committee seems to have devoted to "Art" … The "Miss May Alexander" hangs opposite a large mirror, so that practically the two centres are filled by Mr. Whistler. We have never seen the portrait before. We are not sure if it has ever been exhibited.' 7

Likewise, another critic commented on the contrast between the work of Manet and Whistler:

'This picture of Miss May Alexander ... combines subtlety with seeming simplicity; its quiet tones, so skilfully handled, are a delight to study. No more striking contrast to it could be found than Edouard Manet's portrait of the poet Astruc ... In place of the subdued charm of Mr Whistler's picture we have here a frankness and directness almost cruel.' 8

Whistler responded to one poor review (possibly the Westminster Gazette, which had, with modified rapture, described it as 'tentative and vague ... for all its charming delicacy and fascination of colour it strikes one as a second-rate Whistler') 9 by drafting an indignant letter to the editor:

'I will then confide to you that the portrait of Miss May Alexander was commenced many years ago - interrupted in its beginning, by illness of the young lady - and never afterwards touched! -

The work is of the same date, if you will keep it a public secret, as the better known picture of the sister "Miss Alexander". -

At the express request of the Committee, I allowed the painting in the Graffton [sic] - , to be exhibited, without a word of explanation - that I might test, for my further reflection, the swift perception of the advanced cogniscienti [sic] since that earlier period, and note their instant pleasure in the technical direction and analysis of the painter's work in it's various stages -

It is reposeful to find no difference after all, between the independant [sic] ones who in those days wrote of the first portrait, as "unfinished".' 10

In fact the portrait of May Alexander was mostly well received. The Echo, for instance, said: 'The work has the true Whistlerian cachet of restrained strength, spontaneity, and distinction.' 11 Whistler used the tenor of such comments, which he described as 'comic grovelling' to try and persuade Alexander (probably vainly) to lend the portrait of Cicely Alexander to an exhibition in Venice. 12