Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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YMSM 250
Arrangement in Black, No. 8: Portrait of Mrs Cassatt

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1883-1885
Collection: Private Collection
Accession Number: none
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 191.1 x 90.8 cm (75 1/4 x 35 3/4")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: painted fish-scale pattern on three sides, and butterfly signature

Arrangement in Black, No. 8: Portrait of Mrs Cassatt

Provenance

  • 1883: commissioned by the sitter and her husband, Alexander Johnston Cassatt (1839-1906) ;
  • 1906: after his death, passed to his second wife, Mrs Packard Laird, and to his son, Edward Cassatt (1869-1922) , and granddaughter, Lois Buchanan Cassatt (Mrs John B. Thayer) (1894-1977) ;
  • 1977: passed by family descent to Charlotte Rush Toland Thayer (Mrs J. B. Thayer IV) (1922-2006) .
  • 2006-present: Private collection.

Exhibitions

  • 1885: Winter Exhibition, Society of British Artists, London, 1885 (cat. no. 362) as 'Arrangement in Black No. 8: Portrait of Mrs. Cassatt'.
  • 1894: Portraits of Women, loan exhibition for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital, National Academy of Design, New York, 1894 (cat. no. 355) as 'Portrait'.
  • 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 45) as 'Portrait of a Lady'.
W. Sickert, drawing after the portrait of Mrs Cassatt, 1885, Victoria and Albert Museum E.829-1919
W. Sickert, drawing after the portrait of Mrs Cassatt, 1885, Victoria and Albert Museum E.829-1919
W. Sickert, 'An Arrangement in Black', Pall Mall Gazette, 8 December 1885
W. Sickert, 'An Arrangement in Black', Pall Mall Gazette, 8 December 1885

When Arrangement in Black, No. 8: Portrait of Mrs Cassatt [YMSM 250] was exhibited at the SBA, Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) made a drawing of it in pen, reproduced above. This was probably the basis for the illustration published in the Pall Mall Gazette, also reproduced above. They show the picture in its painted frame but do not include such details as Mrs Cassatt's features. The paper explained:

'To us, Philistines that we are, it has rather the appearance of an arrangement in white, but Mr. Whistler's clever pupil protested so vehemently against the introduction of Mrs. Cassatt's eyes, or Mrs. Cassatt's nose and mouth, that we gave in. The size of the drawing does not, according to the Whistlerian cult, allow of the introduction of such "small facts as eyes." So we felt compelled to put the facts (if not the eyes) before our readers and Mrs. Cassatt.' 1

The Eastern Morning News commented on 10 December 1885 that 'despite his eccentricity', Whistler was 'represented by some powerful portraits' including that of Mrs Cassatt.

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, photograph, GUL PH6/005
Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, photograph, GUL PH6/005

The painting was hung (rather near a radiator!) in the Boston 1904 exhibition.

Notes:

1: Pall Mall Gazette, London, 8 December 1885, p. 4. Whistler kept a press cutting of it, GUL Whistler PC8. The original drawing is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, to which it was given by Dr Percy E. Spielmann, E.829-1949; Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1949, London: HMSO, 1961. See Robins 2007 [more] , pp. 95-96.

Last updated: 28th May 2021 by Margaret