The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

It has been suggested that the Head of a Peasant Woman dates from between 1855 and 1858, when Whistler was a student in Paris. ¹

Head of a Peasant Woman, The Hunterian

However, there is some doubt about the artist, and therefore about the date, except that it must date from before its first known exhibition in 1905.

Images

Subject

Titles

Whistler's original title is not known. Later titles are as follows:

• 'Tête de paysanne' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). ²
• 'Tête de Femme' (1905, ISSPG). ³
• 'Head of a Peasant Woman' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

'Head of a Peasant Woman', a translation of the earliest known title, is the generally accepted title.

Description

Head of a Peasant Woman, The Hunterian

A head and shoulders portrait of a woman, in vertical format. She has dark eyes. Her dark hair, with a central parting, is pulled back behind her ears and bound with a plain white cotton scarf. She is turned slightly to her right, and seen in three-quarter view, but looks directly at the viewer. She wears gold earrings, and a pearl on a dark ribbon hangs round her neck. A white blouse is just visible at her neck under a grey/black dress. The background is very dark.

Sitter

The identity of the sitter is unknown. Whistler's biographers, the Pennells, described the sitter as a 'model'. ⁵ Her neat dress and tasteful jewellery suggest that she was not a servant, nor particularly poor, but equally, that she was not a fashionable lady.

Comments

The provenance of Head of a Peasant Woman is not comprehensive, in that it came from a relative of Whistler, but it is not mentioned in publications before 1905. Technically the painting, while an attractive and professional work, is not totally consistent with Whistler's known work.

Whistler Smoking, Private collection

Curiously, however, the painting is close in size to another early portrait on a wood panel, Whistler Smoking y009. The early history of both paintings is unclear: Head of a Peasant Woman was in a French collection by 1905 and Whistler Smoking was in a French collection until 1912. However, the technique is rather different (the self-portrait is signed and is more thickly and freely painted), as is the scale of the head in relation to the panel. The similarity in support and size may well be sheer coincidence but it could indicate a link to Whistler.

Technique

Composition

Head of a Peasant Woman, The Hunterian

La Mère Gérard (1), Colby College Museum of Art

Although the realistic approach is comparable to Whistler's other portraits of the late 1850s, particularly La Mère Gérard (1) y026, it is painted far more thinly and carefully than other portraits, such as Whistler Smoking y009, Portrait of Whistler with Hat y023, and Head of an Old Man Smoking y025. Portrait of Major G. W. Whistler (2) y029 comes closest in technique and in precision, but it is not as thinly painted and is probably not by Whistler!

Technically Head of a Peasant Woman is also comparable to some of Whistler's late panels, such as Gold and Orange: The Neighbours y423 in its level of finish and treatment of paint.

It is not totally consistent with Whistler's known work but it is true that his early work can vary quite considerably in technique.

Technique

Head of a Peasant Woman, The Hunterian

Traces of a graphite pencil outline can be seen around and on the head, where the paint is almost as thin as watercolour. It is on a 4-5 mm thick wooden panel, with a slight bevel on the verso, which has a vertical grain. This was prepared with a grey/buff ground, possibly over a white ground. ⁶

The light grey priming consists of lead white, chalk and bone black, in oil. The background has a light/mid blue underpainting in lead white and synthetic ultramarine in oil, absent from the dress. The black paint includes bone black and natural umber in lead white. According to Professor Joyce H. Townsend, the materials are consistent with Whistler’s materials. ⁷

There are signs of abrasions and possible reworking around the head, probably by the artist.

Conservation History

There are abrasions, which may be the result of cleaning. It was varnished by Harry Woolford, Edinburgh, in 1967, and has rather a thick and slightly discoloured glossy varnish. It is, however, structurally sound. ⁸

Frame

Modern, 37.7 x 30.2 x 3.5 cm.

There is a stamp on the verso, reading 'DOUANE / EXPORTATION / CENTRALE'; this may date from the painting's exhibitions in 1905. There is also an exhibition label on the verso, 'POTTIER, EMBALLEUR … 11, Rue Grillon, PARIS'.

History

Provenance

• 1905: owned by Beatrice Winans (Comtesse de Béarn) (1884-1907), wife of Henri Louis Elie Joseph de Galard de Béarn (1874-1947), Comte de Brassac;
• 1907 or 1947?: possibly given or bequeathed to the Comtesse de Béarn's sister, Marie Julie Pamphile Berthe de Béhague, Comtesse de Ganay (1868-1940), wife of Charles Alexandre Anne Jean de Ganay, Comte de Ganay (1861-1948), and passed by family descent to their son, Octave Marie Hubert de Ganay, Marquis de Ganay (1888-1974), Paris and Milly, S.-et-O.;
• 1961: sold by the Marquis de Ganay to the University of Glasgow.

The early provenance is uncertain. It could have been passed by family descent from Whistler's half-brother, William McNeill Whistler (1836-1900) to Beatrice Winans (Comtesse de Béarn) (1884-1907). There is no record of it before 1905 when she lent it to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition. The Comtesse died shortly after the birth of her son, and the painting could well have passed to her sister, who was known as an important collector.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 80) as 'Tête de Femme'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 3b) as 'Tête de paysanne'.

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Head of a Peasant Woman, The Hunterian

La Mère Gérard (1), Colby College Museum of Art

At its first known exhibition, at the Whistler Memorial exhibition in London in 1905, it was compared to La Mère Gérard (1) y026, but showed, wrote the Sheffield Daily Telegraph on 23 February 1905, 'a little more decision.'

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 21), plate 6, as 'Head of a Peasant Woman'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• The International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers (ed.), Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late J. McNeill Whistler, London, 1905 (cat. no. 80).
• Exposition des œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l’École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 3b).

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Whistler Memorial Exhibition', Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Sheffield, 23 February 1905, p. 8.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907, p. 187 (cat. no. 184).
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 73-74, repr. f.p. 68 as 'Tête de paysanne'.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (cat. no. 70).
• Spalding, Frances, Whistler, Oxford and New York, 1979, p. 14, repr. pl. 6.
• Spalding, Frances, Whistler, revised edition, London and New York, 1994, pp. 9, 34, repr. pl. 2.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 24.

Books, General

• Meier-Graefe, Julius, Modern Art, 2 vols., London and New York, 1908, vol. 2, pp. 204-05.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Hopkinson, Martin J., James McNeill Whistler at the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 1990.

EXHIBITION:

• Young, Andrew McLaren, James McNeill Whistler: An Exhibition of Paintings and Other Works, Organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain and the English-Speaking Union of the United States, London and New York, 1960 (cat. no. 2).
• Spencer, Robin, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 1969 (cat. no. 2).
• Pickvance, Ronald, and Andrew McLaren Young, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903): An Exhibition of Works from the University of Glasgow Collection, Nottingham, 1970 (cat. no. 2).
• Young, A. McLaren, Glasgow University’s pictures: a selection of paintings, drawings, prints, and other works from the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow [exhibition catalogue, Colnaghi’s], London, 1973 (cat. no. 68) repr. pl. 36.
• Sutton, Denys, and Martin Hopkinson, ホイスラー展. Whistler Exhibition in Japan, Tokyo, 1987 (cat. no. 2).
• Ono, Ayako (ed.), ホイッスラー展. James McNeill Whistler Retrospective, Tokyo, 2014 (cat. no. 1).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• The Hunterian, University of Glasgow website, at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/41300.

• ArtUK website at https://artuk.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 21) 'Tête de paysanne / 'Tête de femme'.

Other

• None.