Technique

Head and shoulders of a girl, Glasgow University Library

The letter was written in ink. Whistler signed it in pencil and went on to sketch the tiny figure (47 mm high) with wiry, pothooked lines, and broken outlines.

Conservation History

The sheet was probably torn from a folded sheet of notepaper, having a torn edge on the left, and was then folded in half horizontally. The fold is just above the drawing. The paper has a slight vertical grain which shows through the soft pencil lines. There are eleven pinholes in the top right corner, probably when the letter was pinned to other documents.