Provenance

• 1879: 'The Gold Girl' was declared among Whistler's assets by the London Bankruptcy Court;
• 1880, 12 February: sold at auction, Whistler's bankruptcy sale, Sotheby's, London, 12 February 1880 (lot 87) as 'Oil Painting (life size) of Connie Gilchrist, dancing with a skipping rope, styled "A Girl in Gold" ', and bought for 50 guineas (£52.10.0), 'Wilkinson' being named as the purchaser;
• 1880, 16 April: bought by Henry Du Pré Labouchere (1831-1912) for £63.0.0, and returned to Whistler for further work;
• 1903: in Whistler's studio for some years until his death, when it was returned by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) to Labouchere;
• 1903: sold by Labouchere;
• 1903/1905: it was 'handed over to the care' of Robert Ross (dates unknown), then running the Carfax Gallery.
• 1909: lent anonymously to ISSPG exhibition in London in 1909 (cat. no. 130) as 'The Gold Girl (Connie Gilchrist)';
• 1910: acquired from Knoedler, New York art dealers, by George Arnold Hearn (1835-1913) in May 1910;
• 1911: given by G. A. Hearn to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The complicated provenance given above has a few gaps. However, during Whistler's lifetime there is additional documentation. On 25 August 1879 Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890) asked Whistler to 'state distinctly and in writing what you will give in work if I secure for you - the Connie', from Whistler's bankrupt estate. 1 It seems he was unable to buy it. And, at Whistler's bankruptcy, it was declared as one of his assets, sold at auction, and afterwards bought by Labouchere for £63.0.0. 2 Labouchere almost immediately let Whistler have it back 'to work on it' but, according to the Pennells, Whistler 'had not touched the canvas' but wanted to destroy it. 3

At some time after this, Labouchere apparently thought of selling it, and Whistler offered to buy it:

"My dear Statesman & Decorator! -

Mrs Labouchère tells me you are going to sell the Connie - and it is proposed that Mr [Horace?] Webster is to hang her on his walls -

It would grieve me that the picture should go from yours into any other hands but my own -

Let me buy it and give you the money that you ... ask him for it -

... Or I will tell you what would be really the thing to do, If her Mama likes the idea, I will paint you a full length picture of little Miss Dorothy Labouchère -

This I should be charmed to do - and you would start in your new Palace as a great 'Art Patron'! " 4

This letter is undated, but the picture was apparently seen in Whistler's studio in 1884, and it was still in the studio at the time of his death in 1903, when it was returned by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) to Labouchere, who then sold it.

It was 'handed over to the care of Robert Ross, who was then running the Carfax Gallery' who hung it 'for a while' in his house in Sheffield Gardens. 5

Exhibitions

• 1879: III Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1879 (cat. no. 55) as 'Harmony in Yellow and Gold – The Gold Girl – Portrait of Miss Connie Gilchrist'.

It was first exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879. Early reviews suggest that the impression of movement – rarely attempted by Whistler – and the realism of the pose were considered satisfactory by some art critics. For instance, Charles E. Pascoe (b. 1877) thought it 'capital':

'It is neither more nor less, however, than a very good full-length of a rather pretty, flaxen-haired girl of sixteen, in light-brown dress, and black-silk stockings, skipping. Mr Whistler's "Harmony" forms in this instance a common-sense and lifelike portrait with neither hazy light nor incomprehensible misty effects.' 6

A caricature in the Mask, 'A Gaiety in Gilt ... Connie soit qui mal y pense', showed Connie confronting an enormous butterfly loosely based on Whistler's monogram. 7 However, the painting aroused mixed feelings. The Art Journal thought it was 'not carried far enough', and The Athenaeum considered it 'badly drawn and ill balanced'. 8

Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) visited the show with Mrs Henry Addams, who suggested that the artist was insane, and the writer Anne Benson Procter (1799-1888) wrote:

'He has a Picture in the Grosvenor that would disgrace any Man. a figure size of life - a girl dancing - She has flesh coloured stockings & yellow boots - and a very short jacket - I do not share its indecency & I [abominate?] uglyness.' 9

Later critics joined the Pennells in thinking the painting, in its final state, a failure. 10

Exhibitions after Whistler's death are not fully documented. According to William Christian Symons (1845-1911), it was exhibited at the Carfax Gallery in November 1905. 11 It was lent anonymously to the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in 1909 (cat. no. 130) as 'The Gold Girl (Connie Gilchrist).' In the following year it was apparently exhibited at Knoedler's in New York (but not included in the catalogue). Years later, it was on loan to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, from 1947-1950, and to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, at the Waldorf Towers, New York, in 1964.