Titles

Suggested titles include:

• 'Portrait du Docteur Davenport' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). 1
• 'Portrait of Dr Isaac Burnet Davenport' (1980, YMSM). 2

'Portrait of Dr Isaac Burnet Davenport' is the preferred title.

Description

A head and shoulders portrait of a man in three-quarter view to left, on a canvas of vertical format. He has dark hair, a moustache, and a grey beard. He wears a black jacket and appears against a grey background.

Sitter

Isaac Burnet Davenport (1854-1922) was an American dentist living in Paris. He referred to himself as 'an honored model.' 3

He was the son of William Whitney Davenport (1820-1899) and Azubah Minervia Davenport (1829-1915). He was the oldest of a large family, which included Idalette Azubah, Ella, Levi Caleb, Nannell, William Samuel, Kirk Addison and Ella. Furthermore he was the half-brother of Delos, Saphronia, Delos T., Christina Jane, Lucellus Edbert, Frone and one other boy, the children of Abigail Goodwin Davenport and W. W. Davenport.

His younger brother, William S. Davenport (1868-1938), was Whistler's dentist in Paris: Whistler's sister-in-law Rosalind Birnie Philip consulted him when in Paris in the late 1890s. Whistler attended seances run by the brothers Davenport in Paris. He told J. J. Cowan 'their operating was just like the flutter of a butterfly in his mouth'. 4

The Hood Museum website comments:

'This ethereal portrait makes no allusion to the sitter’s occupation or prominent social standing. Instead, it suggests a deeply introspective individual concerned more with the life of the mind than material pursuits. ' 5