The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander dates from 1872/1873. ¹

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander, Private Collection

Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander, Tate Britain

This is a study of the head of Cicely Henrietta Alexander, in almost exactly the same pose as in the completed painting, Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander y129, and is dated accordingly.

Images

Subject

Titles

One main title have been suggested:

• 'Study for the head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander' (1905, ISSPG). ²
• 'Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander' (1980, YMSM). ³

Description

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander, Private Collection

A study of the head and shoulders of a girl, in vertical format. She is in three-quarter view to left. She wears a grey dress or jacket with white blouse, and a black bow in her long blonde hair.

Sitter

Cicely Henrietta Alexander (1864-1932), daughter of Rachel Agnes Lucas Alexander and William Cleverly Alexander (1840-1916).

Technique

Composition

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander, Private Collection

Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander, Tate Britain

This is a study of the head of Cicely Henrietta Alexander, which is almost exactly the same as in the completed painting, Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander y129.

Technique

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander, Private Collection

The canvas is of fairly fine weave. The paint was applied with a square bristle brush, 12mm (½") wide. Broad, squidgy, vigorous brushstrokes were massed on top of each other and worked with brush, hand and palette knife. The background and hair were painted in tones of beige, white and grey, with touches of pink in her cheeks, mouth, and the tips of her ears. The girl's features were finished with drops of liquid paint for the eyes and a series of diagonal strokes for the mouth (which is unusual but quite effective).

The technique is similar to that used in the Study for the Head of Carlyle y136.

Conservation History

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander, Studio, vol. 30, 1904, p. 19

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander, photograph, [1960]

Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander, photograph, Christie's, 1970

Unfortunately the butterfly signature, added by Whistler after 1897, was partially removed during restoration at the Fogg Museum of Art in 1960. ⁴

The canvas has been both lined and strip-lined, and the stretcher replaced. The picture is rather dirty, soiled and spotty (2019) with uneven discoloured varnish. A small hole at centre left has been inpainted.

Frame

n/a

History

Provenance

• 1878: bought from the artist by Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890), London.
• Before 1897: possibly Thomas Glen Arthur (1858-1907), Ayr, Scotland.
• 1897: Boussod, Valadon & Cie (Goupil), London.
• Before 1902: William Burrell (1861-1958), Glasgow;
• 1902: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 16 May 1902 (lot 158) as 'Sketch for the head of Miss Cicely Alexander', bought in by Hardy at 85 guineas.
• 1905: Alexander Reid (1854-1928), Glasgow;
• 1907: sold by Reid to Wunderlich, New York dealers, March 1907, for £400.
• Date unknown: bought from Durand-Ruel, art dealer, New York, by Frank Gair Macomber (1849-1941), Boston;
• 1941: bequeathed to his daughter, Isabella Ogden Reed Macomber (Mrs Charles F. Lyman) (b. ca 1880, m. 1899), and passed by family descent to her granddaughter, Elizabeth L. Robb, Mrs J. Hampden Robb (1901-1987), Beverly Farms, MA, and Mrs Robb's son, Richard L. Jackson (dates unknown), Washington, DC;
• 1970: at auction, Christie's, London, 11 December 1970 (lot 163), bought in by Mrs Sieff (dates unknown) at 8000 guineas;
• 1978: sold by Richard L. Jackson (dates unknown) to the Peterson Galleries, Beverly Hills, CA;
• 1979: bought by Dr John Larkin (n/a), White Bear Lake Minnesota;
• By 1981: Jonathan Westervelt Warner, Sr (1917-2017), Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Gulf States Paper Corporation, later Westervelt Co.);
• 2017: passed on his death to the Christie's, New York;
• 2019: art market, New York.

According to the Pennells, 22 February 1878 C. A. Howell recorded in his diary the purchase of 'a sketch of Miss Alexander' together with four other works from Whistler for £50. ⁵ The provenance is somewhat confusing and not entirely complete.

According to a later owner, F. G. Macomber, it was at one time owned by the collector and textile manufacturer T. G. Arthur (who died in February 1907, and had then been living for ten years in Algiers). The Art Journal in October 1897 reproduced it as the property of Boussod, Valadon & Co. ⁶ Since the butterfly signature is of the kind used by Whistler in 1897, it was probably signed by Whistler with his butterfly at the request of Boussod, Valadon & Co.

However, although the precise details are not known, the painting seems to have stayed in Scotland, or returned there. It was consigned by the important Glasgow collector William Burrell to Christie's, 16 May 1902 (lot 158) but failed to sell and was bought in by Hardy at 85 guineas. According to Singer, it was owned in 1905 by 'Alexander Barr' but this was almost certainly incorrect since in the same year it was lent by the Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London (cat. no. 74), and it was sold by Reid to Wunderlich's in March 1907, for £400. ⁷ Shortly afterwards it was in America and was lent anonymously to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in June 1907.

The next ten years are less clear, partly because its history overlaps with that of Alice Butt (1) y437.

It may have been owned in 1907 by F. G. Macomber, Boston, who had, at some time unknown, bought it from Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York dealer, for $425. ⁸ It passed to his daughter, Mrs Charles Lyman, and granddaughter, Mrs J. Hampden Robb, and then to Richard L. Jackson, who lent it to Princeton University Art Museum, N.J. It was on the market through the Adams Davidson Galleries in 1972, and sold to the Petersen Galleries, Beverly Hills, in September 1978. Dr John Larkin bought it in March 1879.

It was later sold to Jack Warner of the Gulf States Paper Corporation, which later became the Westervelt Company. The Westervelt collection was housed in Tuscaloosa Museum of Art, which closed in 2018, after Jack Warner's death. The painting remained in the possession of the Gulf States Foundation in 2018 and by 2019 was placed on deposit at Christie's, New York, with a view to selling it. Its current whereabouts is unknown.

Exhibitions

• 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. 74) as 'Study for the head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander'.

The size was given incorrectly in the catalogue as 10 x 14 1/2 inches.

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. 128) as 'Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander', plates 112, 397.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Oils, Water-colors, Drawings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1934 (cat. no. 15).

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Some Early Pictures by Mr. Whistler', The Art Journal, October 1897, pp. 289-91, at p. 290, repr. without butterfly.

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. 219 (cat. no. 424).
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 175.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, p. 69.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (cat. no. 180).
• Singer, Hans Wolfgang, James Mc.N. [sic] Whistler, Die Kunst, Berlin, vol. 19, 1905 , repr. f.p. 36.
• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, repr. p. 19.

Books, General

• Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, 2nd edition, London, 1959, pp. 104-05.
• Harriet K. Stratis, ‎Britt Salvesen (eds.), The Broad Spectrum: Studies in the Materials, Techniques, and Conservation of Color on Paper, 2002, p. 36.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, 2nd edition, London, 1959, pp. 104-05.
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 31).
• Pickvance, Ronald, A Man of Influence: Alex. Reid, 1854-1928, Scottish Arts Council, Glasgow 1967 (cat. no. 2).
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 91).
• An American Odyssey: The Warner Collection of American Painting, The Frick Collection, New York, 2014.

SALE:

• Christie's, London 11 December 1970 (lot 163).

Journals 1906-Present

• Anon., Boston Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, June 1907, p. 24.
• The Magazine Antiques, vol. 119, 1981, p. 1225.
• Baily, James Thomas Herbert, The Connoisseur, vol. 207, p. 38, repr.

Websites

• Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian American Art Museums website at http://collections.si.edu.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 113) 'Head of Miss Alexander'.

Other

• None.