The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

r.: Two sketches of Nellie Farren; v.: Studies of two actors or actresses, one playing a banjo date from 1878.

r.: Two sketches of Nellie Farren, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute

The sketches are fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 667).

Images

Subject

Sitter

r.: Two sketches of Nellie Farren, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute

Ellen ('Nellie') Farren (1848-1904), Principal Boy at the Gaiety Theatre.

Technique

Conservation History

The sheet was torn by the artist and intended for destruction, but retrieved and repaired by Thomas Way

On 8 July 1912 his son Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) told Dr Williamson that 'several which belong to my father are very dilapidated having been torn across by Whistler'. ¹

History

Provenance

• 1870s: torn by the artist and intended for destruction, but retrieved by Thomas Way (1837-1915) or his son Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London;
• ca 1913: acquired from Way or, after his death, from his widow, by Pickford Robert Waller (1849-1930);
• 1930: bequeathed to his daughter, Sybil Christina Waller (1882-1973);
• 1965: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 12 November 1965 (31) and bought by Knoedler's, New York dealers;
• 1969: bought by the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute on 19 May.

Exhibitions

It has not been exhibited.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 667) as 'r.: Two sketches of Nellie Farren; v.: Studies of two actors or actresses, one playing a banjo'.

Books on Whistler

• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, p. 21, repr. f.p. 20 as "Connie Gilchrist as `The Skipping Girl'."