Titles

A variant title gave the sitter's name incorrectly:

• 'Portrait of H. R. Eldon (1)' [sic] (1980, YMSM). 1

The portraits of Elden have been numbered to avoid confusion, and the spelling of his name has been corrected. The preferred title is therefore 'Portrait of M. R. Elden (1)'.

Description

According to the Pennells it was a full length portrait of a man. 2

Sitter

The artist Matthew Robinson Elden (1839-1885) was a close friend and frequent visitor to Whistler's studio from about 1876 until he went mad, dying in an asylum in 1885.

Whistler painted three portraits of him, Portrait of H. R. Eldon (1) [YMSM 243], Portrait of H. R. Eldon (2) [YMSM 244], and Portrait of H. R. Eldon (3) [YMSM 245], which is the only one extant.

His name, incorrectly spelled as 'Eldon' in earlier publications, was corrected to 'Elden' in the online Whistler Correspondence edition in 2003.