Composition

A pencil sketch, Portrait of George Vanderbilt [M.1505], is closely related to the oil, except that the legs are further apart and his left leg not so far forward as in the painting.

Technique

It is on a medium weave canvas, and was painted extremely thinly, with layers of soft flickering brushstrokes, much rubbed down, so the result is insubstantial, the figure fading into shadow. The collar and the face, however, were finished with slightly thicker paint, and broader brushstrokes on the forehead and cheeks.

There are signs of pentimenti around the head, the sleeve on the left was originally further left, and (also at left) his right hand was tried out lower and to left. His right hand, possibly holding a grey glove as well as the cane, was originally lower.

Conservation History

The Pennells thought that: 'not one of his other portraits of men interested Whistler so much; certainly not one was finer than the picture when we saw it in the London studio. But it was a wreck in the Paris Memorial Exhibition of 1905 ... it had been worked over too often.' 1

It was restored about 1995, with considerable difficulty because of the thinness of Whistler's paint.

Frame

Size: 229 x 113 x 7 cm (90 1/4 x 44 1/2 x 2 3/4").

It is possible that Claude Chapuis (1829-1908) in Paris had it for framing or packing in July 1899. 2