Titles

Only one title has been suggested:

• 'Portrait of a Child' (2013, Sotheby's). 1
• 'Portrait of a Child' (1980, YMSM). 2

Description

A half-length portrait of a child facing the viewer, in vertical format. She wears a round hat over short brown hair, and a pale brown coat or jacket with a huge bow at the neck.

Sitter

The sitter has not been identified although the picture bears some resemblance to portraits of children painted by Whistler at various periods (The Chelsea Girl [YMSM 314], Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of Master Stephen Manuel [YMSM 321], Portrait of Miss Amy Brandon Thomas [YMSM 392], Alice Butt (1) [YMSM 437], Alice Butt (2) [YMSM 438], Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!' [YMSM 464], and A Corsican Child [YMSM 544].

It is just possible that the model was Alice Maud Hamerton (b.1882), the niece of Maud Franklin (1857-1939), and is the portrait listed as Little Maud Hamerton [YMSM 347].

Comments

Denys Sutton, one-time owner of the painting, commented, '[Whistler] hinted at the presence of that mysterious inner-world, which resides within us all, and the allusion to which became a major objective of his mature style', and he added:

'... in order to obtain the effect desired, which was really the apprehension of that mysterious quality in any personality which reveals the individual, he had to provide, as it were, an instantaneous statement of the special spark which vivified this inner world.' 3