Technique

The canvas was prepared with a grey ground. According to conservation reports by the Fogg Art Museum, Whistler mixed varnish with his paint when painting it, and the portrait was covered with a thick coat of resinous varnish. The paint was applied thinly and evenly, and well worked in to give a matt appearance over the head and ruff.

Way believed this to be one of Whistler's few portraits showing the head and shoulders alone. 1 However, since the paint goes right to the edge of the canvas round the stretcher on all sides, it was probably cut from a full-length portrait.

The ruff, or collar, was originally much darker, and appears to have been reworked or added later, possibly not by Whistler.

Conservation History

It has been scrubbed down, and was possibly one of the pictures unfinished, or 'more or less destroyed' by Whistler at the time of his bankruptcy in 1879.

The face is very like that of Harmony in Grey and Peach Colour [YMSM 131] in appearance, which also came from T. R. Way's collection. It is possible that Way worked on Maud Franklin [YMSM 132] and assisted the resemblance. He may also have added the thick varnish.

The fine, shiny black outlines of the collar and coat seem to have been a later addition. They do not appear in Way's lithographic reproduction of the painting.

Frame

82.2 x 61.6 x 7.6 cm (32 3/8 x 24 1/4 x 3").