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

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Portrait of George W. Vanderbilt

Titles

Possible titles include:

  • 'Portrait of George W. Vanderbilt' (1980, YMSM). 1
  • 'George W. Vanderbilt' (2015, National Gallery of Art). 2

'Portrait of George W. Vanderbilt' is the preferred title.

Description


                    Portrait of George W. Vanderbilt, National Gallery of Art
Portrait of George W. Vanderbilt, National Gallery of Art

A full length portrait of a man in vertical format. He wears a grey suit, a white shirt with high collar and black bow tie, and he holds a slim cane with both hands. It crosses his thighs, at a slight diagonal from lower left to higher at right. Behind him, a grey wall with a white dado runs from centre left diagonally back into the dark depths of the room at right.

Sitter


                    George W. Vanderbilt, photograph
George W. Vanderbilt, photograph

George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914) . In December 1897 when the first stage of the portrait was over, Whistler wrote to Vanderbilt: 'And for once I think I may say as Ingres did when he was confronted with his own portrait of Prince Napoléon, Quel beau portrait que vous avez là mon Prince!' 3

Théodore Duret (1838-1927) commented on the extreme thinness of the legs as being true to life. 4

Vanderbilt also commissioned portraits of his wife and child (Ivoire et or: Portrait de Madame Vanderbilt [YMSM 515] and Portrait of a Baby [YMSM 549]).

Notes:

1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 481).

2: National Gallery of Art website at http://www.nga.gov.

3: [28/30 December 1897], GUW #05916.

4: Duret 1904 [more] , pp. 173-74.

Last updated: 18th October 2020 by Margaret