Titles

Early titles gave the sitter's name incorrectly:

• 'Portrait of Mr. Eldon [sic] (Intimate friend of Whistler)' (1947, Macbeth). 1
• Portrait of H. R. Eldon (3) [sic] (1980, YMSM). 2

The preferred title is 'Portrait of M. R. Elden (3).' The numbering is necessary to distinguish it from other portraits of Elden.

Description

A half-length portrait of a man in a grey jacket against a dark background, in vertical format. He has a large moustache and neat beard, and looks directly at the viewer. He lean,s with his right elbow, on a table at left.

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.

Whistler painted three portraits of him, Portrait of H. R. Eldon (1) [YMSM 243], Portrait of H. R. Eldon (2) [YMSM 244], and the painting under discussion, 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.