Composition

The dress and pose are similar to those in a pastel, r.: The Blue Girl; v.: Curtain [M.0521], which dates from the mid-1870s. Variations on the dress and pose are seen in The Blue Girl: Portrait of Connie Gilchrist [YMSM 207], dating from the late 1870s. T. R. Way was incorrect in stating that Scherzo in Blue: The Blue Girl was painted 'in a similar pose and arrangement' to the second portrait of Connie Gilchrist. 1

Technique

Mrs Marzetti described Whistler's method of painting her sister:

'he stood yards away from the picture with his brush, and would move it as though he were painting; he would then take a hop skip and jump across the room, and put a dab of paint on the canvas; he also used to wet his finger, and gently rub portions of his picture. I have often seen him take a sponge with soap and water, and wash the Blue Girl's face (on the canvas, I mean).' 2

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) painted a sketch of Maud Waller posing in the studio. 3 It shows Whistler's table palette at left, and the canvas, framed, tilted forward as if in on the walls of an exhibition. It is likely that this sketch was painted in 1884, when Whistler was still trying to complete the portrait for exhibition. According to another of Whistler's followers, Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938), at the press view 'Whistler was still attempting to repaint the mouth.' 4

In 1884 The Graphic commented: ' "The Blue Girl," is not a favourable example of Mr. Whistler's skill in portraiture. His fine sense of colour is shown in the treatment of delicately modulated local tints, but the girl's head is ill-drawn, one eye being considerably higher than the other.' 5

Conservation History

Unknown. Probably destroyed.

Frame

Unknown.