The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1) may date from between 1872 and 1873. ¹

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle, Private collection

It is dated from its relationship to Whistler's completed portrait, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle y137, but is more likely to be by Walter Greaves (1846-1930).

Images

Subject

Titles

Two titles have been suggested for the painting:

• 'Study of Carlyle on Back of Canvas' (1921, Pennell). ²
• 'Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1)' (1980, YMSM). ³

The title 'Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1)' (used in the 1980 catalogue) is retained here.

Description

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle, Private collection

The Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1) y133 shows a seated man in black, in profile to left, unfinished; it is in horizontal format. It is on the verso of Nocturne Violet and Gold – Winter by Walter Greaves (1846-1930).

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (rotated), Private collection

Underneath this rough sketch, a full length figure is just visible, painted at right angles to the study of Carlyle. It shows a woman in a long white dress standing on a beige floor before a black dado.

Site

Not identifiable.

Sitter

The sitter for Whistler's completed portrait was Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881).

Walter Greaves is known to have painted several portraits of Carlyle, probably from memory. A good example is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (PG 982).

Technique

Composition

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle, Private collection

Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, Glasgow Museums

The Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1) is one of a number of sketches and studies for or after Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle y137. This one shows Carlyle's hat higher up his knee than in Whistler's completed painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle y137. However, it is totally unlike Whistler's other sketches (Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (2) y134 and Study for 'Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle' y135) in technique.

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (rotated), Private collection

Harmony in White and Blue, Leeds City Art Gallery

Whistler, Harmony in Grey and Peach Colour, Fogg Art Museum

This figure study, visible underneath the Carlyle study, may be related to paintings by Whistler of the same period (see Harmony in Grey and Peach Colour y131), and to a painting that was formerly attributed to Whistler, but may be by Walter Greaves, Harmony in White and Blue y126. Indeed both studies on the verso were probably by Greaves, who also painted the oil, Nocturne Violet and Gold – Winter, on the recto.

Technique

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle, Private collection

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (rotated), Private collection

The underlying painting of a standing woman has been rubbed out, and parts of the canvas weave remain visible. The sketch of Thomas Carlyle is executed with broad, almost rectangular brushstrokes. Both sides of the canvas are painted with similar brushstrokes.

These sketches were painted on the verso of Nocturne Violet & Gold - Winter by Walter Greaves (1846-1930), and were probably also painted by Greaves.

Although it has been considered just possible that it was a very rough sketch done by Whistler to show the Greaves brothers the composition of Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle y137, no other extant preliminary sketches by Whistler are remotely like these. They are quite unlike Whistler's known work.

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• Before or in 1910: at the shop of Walter Thomas Spencer (1864-1936), a second-hand book-seller in New Oxford Street, Holborn;
• 1910: bought with about fifty other paintings by Frida Uhl Strindberg (1872-1943) and sold by her to Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929).
• 1967: sold in May by The Fine Art Society, London dealers, to a private collector;
• 1977: sold by him to Michael Parkin (d. 2014), London dealer, in October.
• 2017: present whereabouts unknown.

The early history and provenance of Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1) y133 remains obscure.

It surfaced in 1910, when Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929) showed it, together with other paintings, to the Pennells on 15 September 1910. It was described as 'a sketch of Carlyle on the back of the gold-brown nocturne' when it was being restored 'in a remote part of Camden Town.' ⁴ The Pennells also identify Frida Strindberg as the lady who bought the fifty or so canvases from W. T. Spencer and sold them to Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell. ⁵ At the time of publication of the Pennell's Whistler Journal, in 1921, it was still in the possession of Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell in London.

Exhibitions

• It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

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. 133), plate 100, as 'Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1)'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, p. 129, repr. f. p. 128.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Henderson, Gavin, The Artists of the Yellow Book & the Circle of Oscar Wilde, Clarendon and Parkin Galleries, London, 1983.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

Portraits of Carlyle by others:

• 'Walter Greaves', National Galleries of Scotland website at https://www.nationalgalleries.org.
• 'Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) by Walter Greaves', National Trust at http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk (acc. 2019).
• 'Thomas Carlyle', National Portrait Gallery website at http://www.npg.org.uk.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 109) 'Thomas Carlyle (Head)'.

Other

• None.