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

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Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert

Titles

Radical variations on the title have been suggested:

  • 'Vert et violet; portrait de Mme S...' (1894, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts). 1
  • 'Mrs. Bernard [sic] Sickert' (1894, Society of Portrait Painters). 2
  • 'Mrs. Bernard [sic] Sickert' (1895, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts). 3
  • 'Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs. E. Milicent Cobden' [sic] (1915, Panama-Pacific Exhibition). 4
  • 'Portrait of Mrs. Cobden Sickert' (1934, Texas State Fair). 5
  • 'Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert' (1980, YMSM). 6
  • 'Green and Violet: Mrs Walter Sickert' (2015, Fogg Art Museum). 7

It is not known why it was shown as 'Mrs Bernard Sickert', in 1894-1895. Bernhard Sickert (1862-1932) was the younger brother of Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) and was not married. The sitter was Walter's wife, Ellen Mellicent Sickert (1848-1914) , whose maiden name was Cobden. 'Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert' is the preferred title.

Description


                    Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert, Fogg Art Museum
Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert, Fogg Art Museum

A portrait in vertical format, showing a woman seated on a sofa, facing the viewer. She wears a black dress with puffed half-length black over-sleeves over a silvery grey/blue blouse with a ruffle at the neck and long sleeves trimmed with braid. She has a pink rose or ribbon on her dress at upper right. The sofa is white, with a straight back and striped beige cover, the white-painted wooden frame decorated at the upper edge with a line and circle pattern.

Sitter

Ellen Mellicent Sickert (1848-1914) . She had posed to Whistler for Arrangement in Violet and Pink: Mrs Walter Sickert [YMSM 337] about 1885-1886.

Notes:

1: Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ de Mars, Paris, 1894 (cat. no. 1185).

2: Fourth Exhibition, Society of Portrait Painters, New Gallery, London, 1894 (cat. no. 85).

3: Thirty-fourth Exhibition of Works of Modern Artists, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Glasgow, 1895 (cat. no. 11).

4: International Exhibition of Fine Arts, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, CA, 1915 (cat. no. 275).

5: The Forty-Eighth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Water Colors, Sculpture, Graphic Arts, State Fair of Texas Art Gallery, Dallas, TX, 1934 (cat. no. 174).

6: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 338).

7: Harvard Art Museums website as http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/230026.

Last updated: 12th November 2020 by Margaret