The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The White Symphony: Three Girls was probably painted in 1867. It is possible that it was worked on later. It bears a rectangular field or cartouche at left, which, if it is intended for a butterfly signature, indicates a date of 1869 or later.

The White Symphony: Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

The White Symphony: Three Girls is a preparatory sketch for The Three Girls y088, a large painting commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892) for his London house. On 5 October 1867 Whistler wrote to Leyland, asking for an advance of £100 and stating, 'I think that you will be pleased with the final oil sketch of your picture.' ¹

The White Symphony: Three Girls, is one of several oil sketches known as the 'Six Projects' (of which, confusingly, there are only five). ² The 'Six Projects' comprise Venus y082, Symphony in Green and Violet y083, Variations in Blue and Green y084, Symphony in White and Red y085 and Symphony in Blue and Pink y086 and The White Symphony: Three Girls y087.

In the spring of 1868 Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) visited Whistler's studio, and wrote afterwards, 'Of three slighter works lately painted I may set down a few rapid notes ... in one, a sketch for the great picture the soft brilliant floor-work and wall-work of a garden balcony serve ... to set forth the flowers and figures of flowerlike women.' ³

William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) wrote in his diary for 28 July 1868 that Whistler was 'doing on a largish scale for Leyland the subject of women and flowers.' ⁴

Judging by the sketches relating to The White Symphony: Three Girls and the larger version, The Three Girls y088, the composition was evolved over several years, from about 1867 to 1873. ⁵ A sketch of the whole composition, Study of 'The Three Girls' m0361, is signed with a butterfly that probably dates from between 1871 and 1874.

The White Symphony: Three Girls was first exhibited in Mr Whistler's Exhibition, Flemish Gallery, 48 Pall Mall, London, 1874 (cat. no. 13).

Images

Subject

Titles

Possible titles include:

• 'Symphony in White and Red' under the heading 'Sketches for Large Paintings' (1874, Flemish Gallery). ⁶
• 'Symphony in White and Red' (1887, Royal Society of British Artists,). ⁷
• 'The White Symphony' (1903, C. L. Freer). ⁸
• 'The White Symphony' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ⁹
• 'The White Symphony: Three Girls' (1980, YMSM). ¹⁰

During Whistler's lifetime, this was twice exhibited with the title 'Symphony in White and Red'. A painting in Whistler's studio at his death has the same title, Symphony in White and Red y085.

To avoid confusion, the preferred title is 'The White Symphony: Three Girls'.

Description

The White Symphony: Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

A figure composition in horizontal format. Three women in white robes admire flowers in a formal garden-like setting. The woman at left has a pink stole, and stands bending forward to right with her hands on her knees. The woman in the centre is crouching, facing back and to right, with her arms reaching out to a plant in a bright reddish-orange pot that sits on a low table or dais. At far right there are pale blue and white pots, one with a pink flower. The woman at right, facing left, wears a red headband or scarf, and holds a round jug in her right hand; her left arm crosses her body, holding over her right shoulder a large white parasol with red edging. Behind the figures is a white shoulder-high fence. A blue open framework and a white awning with purple dotted edge are visible above the fence, against a blue sky. The floor is white with possibly a blue striped rug at left, and pale blue and lilac material has been dropped in the foreground. At upper left is a tree with bright red blossoms or berries, and at upper right, white blossom above a purple flower in a red pot (this being cut off by the edge of the canvas).

A contemporary description was full and unflattering:

'This is a composition of three figures, whose faces are simply daubs, and whose bodies bend in and out in a most snake-like fashion. At least this is the attitude taken by the male with a purple fan in his hand and the lady standing opposite, while the third figure, a male "gent," is squatted on the ground like a Japanese, in the act of trimming a shrub. His hands are lost in a cloud of paint, and his right arm from the elbow is apparently twice as long as his shoulder is from the elbow. They are draped in what might be called esthetic winding-sheets, and taken all in all are decidedly very grave-looking objects. We see spots of red on one portion of the work, pink dashes elsewhere, and a lot of white everywhere; and this is the harmonious symphony we are called upon to admire! No one, I should think, but Mr. Whistler would have the audacity to place such a composition before the British public under the name of a painting, but I see he calls it a symphony, and as such it must pass for another of his discordant "notes." ' ¹¹

Sitter

Study of 'Tillie: A Model', 1873, The Hunterian

There were probably several models over the years. At a late stage in the evolution of the figure at left, Matilda Maria Gilchrist née Potter (1826-1886) posed for the drypoint Tillie: A Model [113], and several drawings, including Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve m0370, in the same pose as the standing figure at left (the figure appears in reverse as printed) .

Comments

Robin Spencer commented that 'The arrangement of the 'Three Girls' parallels Albert Moore's Pomegranates (Guildhall Art Gallery, London) of 1866, and also the figures in certain Japanese prints.' ¹² Pomegranates is an interior scene, with three women in robes of pink, lilac and warm red shades bend, crouch and lean over a pink and white cabinet. The dresses and the surroundings – a wall hanging in white and pale blue, a woven patterned rug, a bowl of fruit and a black two-handled vase, and a spray of leaves as well as a general air of doing almost nothing on a warm day – have strong links with Whistler's aesthetic semi-classical subjects.

Technique

Composition

DRAWINGS:

A crouching woman in a short-sleeved robe, 1865/1868, The Hunterian

A woman listening to a musician, 1865/1868, The Hunterian

Two possible early studies are A crouching woman in a short-sleeved robe m0325 and A woman listening to a musician m0328. Both show draped figures. A woman listening to a musician m0328 is similar in pose to the standing figure on the right but lacks the accessories of jug and parasol, and the draperies are different: however, it shows that the pose was one to which Whistler frequently returned. Most extant studies date from slightly later than this and show nude figures.

A nude holding up a parasol, 1870/1873, The Hunterian

A nude holding up a parasol m0372 shows a possible alternative pose for the standing figure at right, with the woman's right hand stretched out to a railing, and the parasol, held in her right hand, behind her head (further right than in the oil sketch).

In Nude with parasol m0371 (private collection) the woman has both hands under her chin, one clutching the jug (which in the oil sketch is down by her side) and the other the parasol. This drawing is not only hard to date but was sold at auction as by Albert Joseph Moore (1841-1893) in 1989. ¹³ It has since been re-attributed, but illustrates how close is the relationship between Whistler's work and Moore's, as was recognised by the artist and others at the time (the Daily News commented in 1887 that the oil sketch looked like 'an unfinished Albert Moore'). ¹⁴

Nude with parasol, 1870/1873, Amherst College

Another drawing (with an identical title), Nude with parasol m0373 (seen above), is closer to the final pose, with her right hand at her side holding what might be interpreted as a jug, but here the soft outlines of the figure suggest the drawing was reworked at a later date. Variations on the pose are seen in other late drawings, the most elaborate being Parasol; red note m0957, which started as a nude figure in 1884, and was fully clothed by the 1890s.

verso: A nude with a parasol and a jug, ca 1869, The Hunterian

verso: Standing figure in 'The White Symphony: Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

verso: Girl with parasol, 1872/1873, Private collection

Several of the early studies for the nude with the parasol are on the back of other drawings. ¹⁵ It is likely that these studies survived because the other side of the paper was used for later drawings. Most of them are difficult to date. For instance, r.: A Japanese Woman; v.: Girl with parasol m0458 was dated ca 1872 on the strength of the Japanese figure on the recto, but in fact the Girl with Parasol dates from some time earlier. Pinholes in the paper suggest that it was pinned up for reference more than once but it is impossible to tell which of the two sides was being consulted.

Crouching figure in 'The White Symphony: Three Girls', 1867/1870, Freer Gallery of Art

The Lily, 1870/1872, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Rose et argent: Fleurs de printemps, 1893, The Hunterian

One sheet dating from 1869/1870 contains two drawings: r.: Crouching figure in 'The White Symphony: Three Girls'; v.: Standing figure in 'The White Symphony: Three Girls' m0359. It has a partial sketch of the standing figure on one side, and an elaborately finished one of the central figure on the other. This crouching figure appears to have taken on a life of its own. Later drawings deriving from the pose include The Lily m0364 (where the figure faces left, the rounded pot has orange spots, and the flower is a white lily), r.: Studies for a portrait; v.: Study of crouching figure m0688, A crouching nude tending a flowering plant m1389, and the gorgeous Rose et argent: Fleurs de printemps m1391, dating from the early 1890s.

Study of 'Tillie: A Model', 1873, The Hunterian

The figure on the left also had a prolonged after-life. There are numerous drawings, some of which could well be studies for a closely related drypoint, Tillie: A Model [113], which is dated 1873. These include Tillie m0367, Study of a Nude m0368, Study for 'Tillie: A Model' m0369 and Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve m0370. Some of these were reworked later; Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve was completed and signed in 1890.

Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), who was in and out of Whistler's studio in the late 1870s, wrote later, 'I saw at least three distinct variations in oil sketches, and an immense number of drawings of the various figures in black and white and pastel on brown paper, some in the nude, some with drapery added.' ¹⁶

Study of 'The Three Girls', 1869/1874, The Hunterian

The White Symphony: Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

A pen drawing of the whole composition differs in several details from the painting. The flower pot in the centre has round rather than straight sides. The woman at right has a more obvious round jug in her right hand, and the parasol frames her head in a large circle, rather than being tilted towards the left (her right). There is a swathe of material hanging behind the straight line of fence behind the figures, in the drawing, where, in the painting, there appears to be an awning above and behind the fence. The drawing is signed with a butterfly on a rectangular cartouche, and must therefore date from after 1871, and probably from 1873 or 1874 when the oil sketch was exhibited in London. It may also represent a proposed, unrealised development of the composition.

THE PAINTINGS:

The White Symphony: Three Girls y087 is a study for The Three Girls y088 of which only a fragment, known as Girl with Cherry Blossom y090, survives. The composition of the destroyed painting, The Three Girls y088, is known from a copy made by Whistler, Pink and Grey: Three Figures y089.

The White Symphony: Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

Pink and Grey: Three Figures, Tate

The White Symphony: Three Girls y087 differs in many details from the copy of the whole composition, Pink and Grey: Three Figures y089. The left-hand figure in the sketch is draped, and holds a fan, but in the copy she is nude. In the sketch, the right-hand figure is holding a basket, which does not appear in the copy. The central, crouching, figure in both The White Symphony: Three Girls y087 and Girl with Cherry Blossom y090 is reaching out with both hands to the right of the main stem of the shrub in the pot, but in Pink and Grey: Three Figures y089 her right hand just reaches the edge of the pot and the other hand is not seen.

There are considerable signs of reworking and alterations. Under the bending figure there is a figure crouching even lower, with her arms straight down, and the purple drapery in front of her was further to the right. The parasol originally came further left, and to the left of it, the blinds hung in a single deep curve.

Technique

The White Symphony: Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

It was painted on a dark grey ground on coarsely textured millboard. It was freely painted with a medium-sized brush and shows a variety of techniques. There is palette knife work on the blossoms, and the branches of the shrub in the centre have been scratched with the knife, or the wrong end of the brush. The faces of the women have been worked with the fingers. The paint is of a creamy consistency, and the brushstrokes throw up a ridge of colour on each side, particularly on the robes. The bright pastel colours criss-cross freely, contrasting with the dark board underneath. At a late stage, the background was painted up to and round the figures. The paint on the blossoms at right has dripped down.

The Freer website comments:

'This study for The Three Girls represents the early, optimistic stage of Whistler’s work on the painting that Leyland commissioned ... Whistler painted The White Symphony on millboard, a coarsely textured, inexpensive support appropriate for creating a rough draft of the composition.' ¹⁷

Conservation History

For some time Whistler had five of the 'Six Projects' hanging in his house in Cheyne Walk. In June 1892 they were cleaned and varnished by Stephen Richards (1844-1900), his picture restorer in London. Whistler then asked David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) to retrieve them from Richards and send them to him immediately in Paris, 'I want my small pictures that you gave him to clean and varnish - You know the ones I mean - the sketches that used to hang in the dining room, Cheyne Walk.' ¹⁸

However, when they arrived he wrote to Richards from Paris:

'I have just received the five small paintings on millboard - (sketches of figures & sea) - that you have cleaned & varnished for me. They look pure and brilliant as on the day they were painted! -

But while you were about it, I wish enough you had seen to the condition of their backs - They were put down upon other cardboards some time ago, and they are all loose and bent about now … How could you let them leave your place, clean and freshly varnished as they were, unframed! ... However happily they are unharmed.' ¹⁹

Treatment at the Freer Gallery of Art included being cradled, cleaned and resurfaced in 1931, resurfaced in 1942, and cleaned and surfaced in 1951.

Frame

• 1874/1889: the style and whereabouts of any early frame is unknown.
• 1890/1892: possibly framed in a Grau-style or other frame of unknown type, whereabouts unknown.
• 1903/1917: Grau-style, American-made, after 1903 [17.8 cm]. ²⁰

The White Symphony: Three Girls, framed, Freer Gallery of Art

The White Symphony: Three Girls, frame, detail

It was exhibited in 1874 and 1887 & 1904 (wonder if there are pictures from this event?). So it may have had a reeded cassetta frame with painted decoration. Most likely this frame dates from Freer’s purchase or gift in 1919. Similar construction as the other frames on the 'Six Projects'.

For some time between 1890 and 1892 Whistler had the so-called 'Six Projects' (actually five!) hanging in his house in Cheyne Walk, although they were not exhibited. The five ' Projects' were certainly framed by 1892, when they were cleaned and varnished by Stephen Richards (1844-1900), but returned to the artist, as he complained 'without their frames? ! !' ²¹

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston, 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/21

The current Grau-style frame could have been added between 1892, when the painting was owned by Whistler, and its sale in 1903 or after it was bought by C. L. Freer in 1903. It is of similar construction to the frames on the other 'Projects'. It was certainly on the frame by 1904, as seen in the photograph above.

The frame was re-gilded in 1960.

History

Provenance

• 1879: acquired at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy by Thomas Way (1837-1915) and passed to his son Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London;
• 1902: sold by T. R. Way to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

On 5 October 1867 Whistler wrote to Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892) of Liverpool, asking for an advance of £100 and stated, 'I think that you will be pleased with the final oil sketch of your picture', the latter being The Three Girls y088. ²²

According to T. R. Way, The White Symphony: Three Girls was sold to his father by Whistler at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy. ²³ Way jr. sold it to C. L. Freer in 1902 for $4800.

Exhibitions

• 1874: Mr Whistler's Exhibition, Flemish Gallery, 48 Pall Mall, London, 1874 (cat. no. 13) as 'Symphony in White and Red' under the heading 'Sketches for Large Paintings'.
• 1887: 64th Annual Exhibition, Royal Society of British Artists, London, 1887 London, RBA, 1887-8 (cat. no. 352) as 'Symphony in White and Red'.
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 19) as 'The White Symphony'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 11).

In the Pall Mall exhibition of 1874 it was described by an art critic simply as 'some girls arranging flowers in bright sunlight:'

'As another attractive feature of the gallery, we have a certain number of designs for pictures. These are painted in oil, but without any fullness of realisation, and giving merely the artist's first thought of the design and colour that is to be thrown into the finished work. One of these represents four female figures on the sea shore; another is of some girls arranging flowers in bright sunlight; and there are two more, neither of which reveal to us their subject with sufficient clearness. We just perceive a fascination of dimly suggested scheme of colour, and note here and there a graceful attitude defining itself from the obscurity of the general mist.' ²⁴

The selection of this painting in 1887 for the winter exhibition at the RBA showed, as Anna Robins comments, 'how important these colour experiments were for the later oil panels.' ²⁵ At the time, 'Symphony in White and Red' was quite well received. The Sunday Times gave it a rave review:

'Nothing ... that Mr. Whistler has ever painted is more exquisite in colour-harmony or grace of design than the "Symphony in White and Red" ... It is poetic — as indeed, all Mr. Whistler's work is — not that it is in any degree literary (Heaven defend me from suggesting such thing in connection with the President's art !), but it is so, in that it might have suggested a poem to Keats himself, so simple, pure, and Greek it is.' ²⁶

The Magazine of Art commented:

'Mr. Whistler himself is represented first by a truly beautiful colour-study in the quasi-Japanese mode, "Symphony in White and Red," which apparently is a comparatively early work of the painter. The subtlety and daring, the unerring success with which the brilliant gradations of red and purple - violet are distributed, make us more than ever regret that the master should disdain technical achievements which he finds too easy in order to attain the impossible in dealing with endless varieties of black and grey.' ²⁷

On the other hand the Daily Chronicle thought it would 'awaken much Philistine hostility' and Whistler's more recent seascapes, and the Graphic thought it 'vague and undefined in form, but exquisite in quality and arrangement of form and colour.' ²⁸

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston, photograph, 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/21

C. L. Freer lent the painting to several exhibitions in his lifetime, including the Boston exhibition of 1904, where the 'Projects' were exhibited together, as shown in the photograph reproduced above. However, by the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot now be lent to any other venue.

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. 87), plate 62, as 'The White Symphony: Three Girls'.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (drawings, cat. nos. 325, 328, 358 verso, 359, 360-64, 367-73, 688 verso, 957, 1163, 1389, 1391, 1394, 1422).
• Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2012, website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk. (cat. no. 113).

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Mr Whistler's Exhibition, Flemish Gallery, 48 Pall Mall, London, 1874 (cat. no. 13) as 'Symphony in White and Red' under the heading 'Sketches for Large Paintings'.
• 64th Annual Exhibition, Royal Society of British Artists, London, 1887 (cat. no. 352) as 'Symphony in White and Red.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 19) as 'The White Symphony'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 11).

Newspapers 1855-1905

• 'Exhibition of Mr. Whistler's Paintings and Drawings', Globe, London, 20 June 1874, p. 2
• Anon., Daily News, London, 26 November 1887.
• Anon., 'The Royal Society of British Artists', News of the World, London, 27 November 1887.
• Anon., 'Royal Society of British Artists', Sunday Times, London, 27 November 1887.
• Anon., 'The Royal Society of British Artists', Daily Chronicle, London, 28 November 1887.
• Anon., 'Royal Society of British Artists', Standard, London, 28 November 1887.
• Anon., The Globe, London, 29 November 1887.
• Anon., 'London Art Galleries', Manchester Courier, Manchester, 30 November 1887.
• Anon., 'Royal Society of British Artists', Home and Colonial Mail, 2 December 1887.
• Anon., 'Royal Society of British Artists', Graphic, 3 December 1887.
• Anon., 'Royal Society of British Artists', Hampshire Independent, 3 December 1887.
• Anon., 'The Suffolk Street Galleries', Daily Chronicle, London, 6 December 1887.
• Anon., 'The London Art Galleries', Eastbourne Review, Eastbourne, 9 December 1887.
• Anon., 'Art', Court Circular, London, 10 December 1887.
• Anon., Pictorial World, London, 22 December 1887.

Journals 1855-1905

• Matsuki, Bumkio (ed.), 'Whistler Memorial Exhibition', Lotus, vol. 1, no. 1, (Special Holiday Number in Memoriam: James A. McNeill Whistler), December 1903, pp. 7-9, at p. 9.
• Swinburne, Algernon C., Essays and Studies, London, 1875, p. 360.
• 'Royal Society of British Artists', Artist, 1 January 1887.
• Magazine of Art, London, 1 February 1888.

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. 158 (cat. no. 19).
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 97-98, repr. fig. 90.
• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, pp. 67, 95-98, 137, 338.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 148-50.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911, pp. 108-09.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 137, 629.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, p. 28.
• Rossetti, William Michael (ed.), Rossetti Papers, 1862-1870, London, 1903, p. 320.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 154 (cat. no. 31).
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 70-71.
• Taylor, Hilary, James McNeill Whistler, London, 1978, repr. p. 48.
• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, pp. 25-26, 30-32.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 26-28, 138, lithograph of a pastel copy by Way made from the original repr. f.p. 26.

Books, General

• Prettejohn, Elizabeth, Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 60.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 107-10, 291-92, pl. 11.
• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 12 (02.138).

EXHIBITION:

• Paintings in oil and pastel by James McNeill Whistler, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1910 (cat. no. 15).
• Exhibition, University of Michigan Club, in C.L. Freer's house, Detroit, 1914 (cat. no. 12).
• Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915 (cat. no. 266).
• Glazer, Lee, The Lost Symphony: Whistler and the Perfection of Art, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2016.

Journals 1906-Present

• Hobbs, Susan, 'A Connoisseur's Vision: The American Collection of Charles Lang Freer', American Art Review, vol. 4, August 1977, pp. 76-101, at p. 90.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1902.138a-b.
• The Lost Symphony: Whistler and the Perfection of Art, ('This is an exhibition about a painting that does not exist. A rescued fragment of the large painting, numerous figure studies, and the frame that Whistler decorated specifically for the finished work are among the tantalizing clues that hint at the masterpiece that might have been.') website at https://asia.si.edu.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 256).

Other

• Chisaburo, Yamada, (ed.), Japonisme in Art: An International Symposium, (Committee for the Year 2001), Tokyo 1980.
• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.