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

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YMSM 464
Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!'

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1898
Collection: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Accession Number: 1943.177
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 51.2 x 30.7 cm (20 3/16 x 12 1/16")
Signature: none
Inscription: none
Frame: Grau-style, American, M. Grieve, ca 1930 [7 cm]

Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!'

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

  • 'Gold & Brown, little Lillie' (1899, Whistler). 1
  • 'Lillie, in our Alley' (1899, Whistler). 2
  • 'Brown and Gold – Lillie "in our Alley!" ' (1899, ISSPG). 3
  • 'Lillie in our Ally' [sic] and 'Brown and Gold, Lillie in our Ally' [sic] (1905, ISSPG). 4
  • 'Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!'' (1980, YMSM). 5

The title was an allusion to the eighteenth century ballad 'Sally in our Alley' written by the poet Henry Carey in 1725, which starts:

'Of all the Girls that are so smart / There’s none like pretty SALLY, / She is the Darling of my Heart, / And she lives in our Alley. / There is no Lady in the Land / Is half so sweet as SALLY, / She is the Darling of my Heart, / And she lives in our Alley.' 6

Description

Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!', Fogg Art Museum
Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!', Fogg Art Museum

A half-length portrait of a girl in vertical format. She sits facing left, in three-quarter view to left, but looking sideways to her left, at the viewer. She has shoulder-length brown hair and a deep fringe, and wears a black cap. Her black dress has a high neck, and a white scarf or blouse is visible at the front. She is sitting on a wooden straight-backed chair, possibly with an off-white canvas top. The background is dark brown.

Sitter

Lilian ('Lily') Pamington (b. 1887/1888) .

Whistler painted about ten portraits of Lillie Pamington including the Study for 'Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" ' [YMSM 463].

Notes:

1: 8 February 1899, GUW #00729.

2: [2/7 June 1899], GUW #00736.

3: 2nd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, London, 1899 (cat. no. 136).

4: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 18) in ordinary and deluxe edition respectively.

5: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 464).

6: The Ballad of Sally in our Alley by Henry Carey, Poetry Foundation website at https://www.poetryfoundation.org.

Last updated: 21st November 2020 by Margaret