Master Menpes, Whereabouts unknown, photograph, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress

Master Menpes may date from the late 1880s. The sketchy style, and the fact that it has not survived so that any analysis is based on a black and white photograph, makes a definite date impossible to establish. It must date from the years when Whistler was associated with the sitter's father, artist Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938), and the photograph may have been owned by him.

Note in Flesh Colour and Grey: Portrait of Miss Dorothy Menpes, whereabouts unknown

Master Menpes, whereabouts unknown

It has been assumed that the portrait of Menpes' son was of a similar date to a portrait of his sister, Note in Flesh Colour and Grey: Portrait of Miss Dorothy Menpes [YMSM 260], and to a watercolour, Master Menpes [M.1017], both dated 1884/1885. 1 Of the several Menpes children, Mortimer James was born in 1879 and Dorothy Whistler in 1883. Dorothy was just a toddler, and Mortimer would have been about five, if these dates are correct.

However, Master Menpes [YMSM 261] appears to show an older child. It could still be Mortimer – though the identification is by no means certain – and the picture could date from later in the 1880s, perhaps between 1886 and 1887, when he would have been seven or eight.

Master Menpes, whereabouts unknown, photograph, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress

Henry E. Dixey in Adonis, photograph

In 1886 Henry E. Dixey (1859-1943) posed in a play called Adonis in what may have been a similar costume, representing the extreme fashion of the 'Incroyables' in Paris during the French Directoire (1795–1799). It is possible that Portrait of Henry E. Dixey [YMSM 356] and Master Menpes [YMSM 261] are related.