Titles

Alternative titles have been suggested:

• 'Harmony in Crimson and Brown' (1881, Whistler). 1
• 'Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs' (1980, YMSM). 2

'Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs' is the preferred title.

Description

A full length portrait of a woman in vertical format. She faces the viewer, wearing a full-length brown fur coat with a broad collar, a muff, and hat.

A photograph in the Glasgow University Library gives the proportions for Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs [YMSM 230]. Assuming it to have been life-size, these proportions correspond to a canvas of approximately 75 x 35 (191 x 89). In 1908 the Pennells said that Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs [YMSM 230] was smaller than Arrangement in Black: Lady Meux [YMSM 228] and Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux [YMSM 229], but in 1911 they omitted this statement. 3

Sitter

Valerie Susan Meux (née Langdon) (1847-1910) .

This was the third of Whistler's portraits of Lady Meux, and the only one not completed (see Arrangement in Black: Lady Meux [YMSM 228], Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux [YMSM 229]).

When she was posing for one of the portraits, Whistler wrote to her, 'I trust you will be quite well and in brilliant spirits that I may catch the particular sparkle in the wonderful eyes I mean this picture to have!' 4