The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux dates from 1881-1882. ¹

1881: It may have been in September 1881 that Whistler wrote to his sister-in-law, 'Mrs Meux came to town and we had up the pictures and slaved away until one of them is supposed to be finished - though it isn't! - and then off she went again.' ²

Alan Summerly Cole (1846-1934) noted progress in his diary:

'1881 ... 26 May. Met Jimmy who is taking a new studio in Tite Street where he is going to paint all the fashionables - views of crowds competing for sittings - carriages along the street ...

26 August. … He is busy painting three portraits of Mrs. Meux.

1882 ... 26 February. To Jimmy's to see his painting of Mrs. Meux. One very fine.' ³

1882: In January 1882 the idea of engraving a portrait of Lady Meux – probably this one – was rejected as economically unrealistic unless the family guaranteed the purchase of a certain number of proofs, or, alternatively, if Henry Graves (1806-1892) thought it viable after seeing it at the Grosvenor Gallery. ⁴

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, The Frick Collection

It was first exhibited at the VI Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1882 (cat. no. 48).

Images

Subject

Titles

Several variations on the title have been suggested:

• 'Harmony in Flesh-Colour and Pink – Mrs. H. B. Meux' (1882, Grosvenor). ⁵
• 'Portrait in Pink ... the pink picture' (1884, Whistler). ⁶
• 'the Pink Meux' (1892, Whistler). ⁷
• 'Harmonie en gris et rose – portrait de Lady Meux' (1892, Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts). ⁸
• 'Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux' (1892, Goupil). ⁹
• 'Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux' (1980, YMSM). ¹⁰

'Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux' is the generally accepted title.

Description

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, The Frick Collection

A full-length portrait of a woman in vertical format. She is in profile to right but looks at the viewer. She wears an ivory/white dress with satiny pink top. The dress is gathered into a bustle and draped around to the front of the figure, held by her right hand. She wears a broad brimmed straw hat decorated with ribbons. She stands on a reddish-brown floor against a greyish background.

Sitter

Lady Meux and Sir Henry Meux, photograph, Lowewood Museum

Valerie Susan Meux (née Langdon) (1847-1910).

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux y229 was the second of the three portraits of Lady Meux to be completed (Arrangement in Black: Lady Meux y228, Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux y229, Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs y230).

'A caricature of Whistler painting simultaneously his three portraits of Lady Meux', by Charles Hallam Elton Brookfield (1857-1913), was published in The Graphic, 25 March 1911. ¹¹

Comments

Dinner Dress, two piece, 1877/1883, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, 1979.34.2-d

The luxurious day dress in pink satin and silvery grey chiffon (or other semi-transparent material) is discussed in detail by Susan Galassi and Helen Grace Burnham in Whistler, Women and Fashion, and compared with the opulent dinner dress reproduced above. With the help of corsets, the dress flattered Lady Meux's generous proportions. Galassi and Burnham draw attention to the sitter's 'assertive stance and outward stare', as suggesting the femme fatale, and compare it with Nana by Edouard Manet (1832-1883) (1877, Kunsthalle, Hamburg). ¹²

Technique

Composition

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, The Frick Collection

Harmony in Flesh Colour and Pink, Davison Art Centre, Wesleyan University

A pen drawing, Harmony in Flesh Colour and Pink m0852 shows her with her arm slightly bent, her figure more curved, and the brim of her hat much smaller. It is possible that this drawing was done after the painting was exhibited in 1882 (it has a butterfly that may date from 1882/1884) and the pose and dress were altered in response to criticisms of the oil. ¹³

Technique

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, The Frick Collection

It is painted on very coarse canvas. The St James's Gazette commented on 21 March 1892 that the canvas was 'wide-meshed, and might have provided material for sifting sand' but added that it was 'by no means ill-adapted to the ends obtained.'

Her face is painted quite thickly, but so thoroughly worked that it has a fine matt surface. It has a sultry glow, which is set off by the thinner paint of her glossy bodice. Taylor notes that Whistler painted with 'bold, broad crisscross strokes' on the ruffles, and 'short, racy touches' on her hat. ¹⁴ The hat originally extended further right. A horizontal line of paint seems to cross under the foot of her train, as if a carpet or stairs were originally drawn there. Taylor observes that another butterfly was originally painted several inches lower than the present one, and this is seen in an early photograph of the portrait. ¹⁵

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) instructed viewers in 1892:

'Look at the revel of the brush on the coarse threads of the portrait of Lady Meux. Is it not beautiful and exhilarating in itself, and is it not a marvel how … the gown is built up by passages of brushwork, which in no way copy the dress, but express it in a language of inspiration?' ¹⁶

A visual examination by Professor Joyce H. Townsend, conservator, Tate Britain, records that there is a quite bright pink imprimatura, and that overall the paint is not much thinned, and is quite opaque in appearance. The face in particular, and the gloved hand, are highly finished, and the crown of the hat has been lowered. The butterfly was added when the picture was dry.

Conservation History

In November 1891 Lady Meux suggested the painting should be taken away and 'I think it would be as well if you were to varnish it.' ¹⁷

The painting was accordingly sent to Stephen Richards (1844-1900), picture restorer, in Berners Street, where Whistler urged Théodore Roussel (1847-1926) to see 'un certain portrait de Lady Meux', and likewise urged Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921) to see 'the Pink Lady-Meux'. ¹⁸

The Frick Collection conservation records state that blooming was noted when the painting was at Knoedler’s gallery in 1933; and in 1938 George L. Stout noted skewed canvas threads (the threads being pulled higher on the left side), and that it had been cut down on the left side, so that there was ca 80 mm of painted canvas on the reverse of the stretcher; he also stated that the ground was white and thin. In 1941 William Suhr noted yellowed varnish and dirt; he did not treat it then but in 1943 he removed the varnish and applied a new varnish. The surface was cleaned in 1980 by John Brealey. ¹⁹

Frame

1882: It is possible that it was originally framed in the reeded cassetta frame that is now on Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder y203; that frame has an autograph handwritten label on the verso reading ‘Pink Picture – J Whistler – 13. Tite Street - Chelsea’. Whistler took a studio at that address on 22 March 1881. Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux y229 was painted in the Tite Street Studio and first exhibited in 1882. ²⁰

The label suggests that at a later date the frames of Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder y203 and Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux y229 were switched. This could have been when both were shown in the 1892 Goupil exhibition.

1892: After Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux y229 was exhibited in Whistler's retrospective exhibition in 1892, Lady Meux complained that 'last time the frame of the picture was so damaged that I had to have it reframed, I mean the pink picture.' ²¹ The style and whereabouts of the replacement frame are unknown.

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, The Frick Collection

ca 1910: The current Portrait Whistler frame is American-made and dates from the early 20th century. It could have been made when the picture was bought by Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), or after 1919 when it entered the Frick Collection. ²²

History

Provenance

• 1881: commissioned by Henry Bruce Meux (1857-1900);
• 1900: bequeathed to Valerie Susan Meux (née Langdon) (1847-1910);
• 1910: bequeathed to Sir Hedworth Lambton (1856-1929), who assumed her name in 1911;
• 1916: sold by him to Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), New York;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Frick Collection.

It was commissioned in 1881, with Arrangement in Black: Lady Meux y228 and Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs y230. Whistler accepted 400 guineas from Sir Henry rather than the 500 originally proposed. ²³ According to Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921), there was some delay before Whistler was paid for Arrangement in Black: Lady Meux y228 and Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux y229. ²⁴

For exhibition in Dublin in 1884 'Lady Meux' was insured for £300. ²⁵

After the death of Lady Meux on 20 December 1910, it passed to her heir, the Hon. Sir Hedworth Lambton, who sold it to H. C. Frick in 1916, for £10,000, according to Albert Ludovici, Jr (1852-1932). ²⁶

Exhibitions

• 1882: VI Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1882 (cat. no. 48) as 'Harmony in Flesh-Colour and Pink – Mrs. H. B. Meux'.
• 1884: Annual Exhibition of Sketches, Pictures & Photography: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Mr Whistler ..., Dublin Sketching Club, Dublin, 1884 cat. no. (243).
• 1892: Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 43) as 'Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux'.
• 1892: Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ-de-Mars, Paris, 1892 (cat. no. 1066) as 'Harmonie en gris et rose – portrait de Lady Meux'.

It was caricatured in Punch in 1882 as 'To be completed in a few more Sittings', the comment being a humorous response to the very free, bold brushwork on the dress. ²⁷ But on the whole it was well received, the St James's Gazette called it 'striking' and the London Daily News, 'clever' and 'harmonious', while The Graphic art critic sat on the fence, describing it as 'undefined as to form, but charming by reason of its exquisite quality of colour'. ²⁸

In 1884, Whistler asked Sir Henry in vain for the loan of the portrait for the Exposition internationale de peinture et de sculpture, Société des XX, Brussels, 1884:

'I was on the point of writing to ask [Sir Henry Meux] kindly to lend the Portrait in Pink for a most important International Exhibition in Brussels, in which I have been chosen as a representative of English Painting - and your pictures would be, above all others, delighted in Abroad ...

If I may have the pink picture, and I trust that Sir Henry will let these works be seen abroad where they are understood and appreciated, will you kindly send me a line here ... The picture would be insured for a thousand.' ²⁹

Early in 1892, when the painting had been varnished, Whistler was wondering whether he could send 'the Pink Meux' to Octave Maus (1856-1919) for exhibition in Brussels. ³⁰ Lady Meux thought that the painting had been taken by Whistler to Paris, but it appears that it was left in the Goupil Gallery, London, where a newspaper praised it in January as 'One of Mr. Whistler's most notable portraits.' ³¹ It was on show 'downstairs' in February, when Whistler advised the manager, D. C. Thomson, 'Dont let it stay too long down stairs - but of this you will be a good judge - It may be doing good.' ³² The 'good' meant the opportunity for patrons, painters, and passers-by to see it; for instance, Whistler asked his patron William Cleverly Alexander (1840-1916) to go and see it. ³³ The painter Charles Frederic Ulrich (1858-1908), saw it, and asked if 'a stunning portrait of a lady' could be borrowed for the VI. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1892. ³⁴ But it was reserved for Whistler's major retrospective at Goupil's.

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, photograph, 1892, Goupil Album, GUL MS Whistler PH5/2

In the Goupil exhibition Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux was well regarded by art critics, on the whole. The Graphic on 26 March compared it and Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander y129 to the work of Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660), and thought them 'remarkable among other good qualities for their fine quality and skilful arrangement of colour.'

It was photographed for inclusion in the Goupil Album after Whistler's retrospective in 1892. Whistler had suggested to the London printsellers H. Graves & Co. earlier in the year that he should have the painting engraved, but this was considered to be unprofitable. ³⁵ After the Goupil exhibition it went 'at once' to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where according to Whistler it was hugely successful:

'Champs de Mars. My success complete - all along the line! - This morning's Figaro - first article Whistler first mentioned after the President Puvis de Chavanne!

Lady Meux picture enormous success! ... I send you cutting from Figaro - you ought to have it into English for some papers tomorrow ...' ³⁶

Edmond Pottier commented in 1892: 'Voilà sans doute un homme qui ne dédaigne pas de faire poser devant lui une noble dame en élégante toilette'. The fact that Lady Meux was a highly fashionable lady undoubtedly appealed to Whistler. However although Pottier remarked on the contemporary subject and modern technique, he thought Whistler painted in the tradition of the old masters, who 'sous l'enveloppe extérieure, cherchent à pénétrer et à faire comprendre la personne morale!' ³⁷

Henry James (1843-1916) was distinctly less impressed. He thought that 'her hat doesn't fit; I also contest her flesh-colour, which has a light gray tinge, not usually remarked in the human complexion.' ³⁸

In 1893 Lady Meux refused to lend the painting again, saying, 'we have decided not to lend the "Pink Picture" again having had to have it re-framed since it was last lent.' ³⁹

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. 229), plate 144, as 'Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux'.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. nos. 690, 852).

Authored by Whistler

• Goupil Gallery and James McNeill Whistler, Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces [portfolio of photographs published after the Goupil Gallery Exhibition, March-April 1892], London, 1892, repr. pl. 22.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• VI Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1882 (cat. no. 48) as 'Harmony in Flesh-Colour and Pink – Mrs. H. B. Meux'.
• Annual Exhibition of Sketches, Pictures & Photography: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Mr Whistler ..., Dublin Sketching Club, Dublin, 1884 (cat. no. 243).
• Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 43) as 'Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux'.
• Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ-de-Mars, Paris, 1892 (cat. no. 1066) as 'Harmonie en gris et rose – portrait de Lady Meux'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Bradford Observer, Bradford, 1 May 1882, pp. 3-4, at p. 4.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', London Daily News, London, 1 May 1882, pp. 5-6.
• 'Demiton' (Mirbeau, Octave), Paris-Journal, 4 May 1882.
• Anon., 'Fine Arts', Graphic, London, 6 May 1882, p. 11.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery. – I', St James's Gazette, London, 6 May 1882, p. 6.
• Anon., 'Special Correspondence', Aberdeen Free Press, Aberdeen, 12 January 1892, p. 5.
• Anon., Swindon Advertiser and North Wilts Chronicle, Swindon, 16 January 1892, p. 6.
• Anon., 'Art Exhibitions. Mr. Whistler's Pictures', St James's Gazette, London, 21 March 1892, p. 12.
• Anon., 'Latest News', The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 21 March 1892, p. 7.
• Anon., Yorkshire Post, Leeds, 21 March 1892, p. 4.
• Anon, 'Mr. Whistler's Works', The Graphic, London, 26 March 1892, p. 26.
• Mirbeau, Octave, Le Figaro, Paris, 6 May 1892.

Journals 1855-1905

• The Art Journal, London, 1882, p. 189.
• Punch, 27 May 1882, caricature repr. p. 241.
• Sickert, Walter Richard, 'Whistler To-day', The Fortnightly Review, vol. 57, new series, vol. 51, April 1892, pp. 543-47.
• Pottier, Edmond, ‘Les Salons de 1892, I’, Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 7, June 1892, pp. 441-67, at p. 455.
• MacColl, Dugald Sutherland, 'Mr Whistler’s Paintings in Oil', The Art Journal, 1893, pp. 88-93, repr. p. 89.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Duret, Théodore, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1904, p. 95.
• Galassi, Susan, and Helen Grace Burnham, 'Lady Henry Bruce Meux and Lady Archibald Campbell', in: MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 30, 157-178, 220, repr. fig. 165.
• Glazer, Lee, Emily Jacobsen, Blyth McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor. Lovely Little Games, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2019, pp. 63, 68, repr. p. 69.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 301, 308-309; vol. 2, p. 35.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, pp. 161-62, repr. p.162.
• Sutherland, Daniel E., Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake, New Haven and London, 2014, pp. 184, 189, 203.
• Taylor, Hilary, James McNeill Whistler, London, 1978, p. 123.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 64-66, 137.
• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, p. 47.

Books, General

• Cox, Devon, The Street of Wonderful Possibilities: Whistler, Wilde and Sargent in Tite Street, London, 2015.
• Ludovici, Anthony, An Artist's Life in London and Paris 1870-1925, New York, 1926, p. 91.
• Montesquiou, Robert de, Les Pas effacés: Mémoires, 3 vols, Paris, 1923, p. 255.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner (ed.), Walter Sickert: the Complete Writings on Art, Oxford, 2000, p. 93.
• Sweeney, J. L. (ed.), The Painter's Eye: Notes and Essays on the Pictorial Arts by Henry James, London, 1956, pp. 209-210.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• The Frick Collection, Handbook of Paintings, New York, 2004.
• The Frick Collection (ed.), Paintings: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German,, vol. 1, Princeton, 1968, pp. 18-20.

EXHIBITION:

• Whistler, Women and Fashion, The Frick Collection, 2003: see MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, chapter 8, pp. 157-78.
• Myers, Kenneth John, Mr. Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2003, p. 88 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• Starr, Sidney, 'Personal Recollections of Whistler', Atlantic Monthly, vol. 101, April 1908, pp. 528-37, at p. 528.
• Sickert, Walter, ‘Where Paul and I differ’, Art News, No. 14, 10 February 1910, p. 113.
• 'The Lost Lady: What became of a Whistler', The Graphic, 25 March 1911, p. 18, 'A caricature of Whistler painting simultaneously his three portraits of Lady Meux' by C. H. E. Brookfield repr.
• 'Portraits New and Old in London', Arts & Decoration, 1921, vols 15-16, p. 174.
• Sutton, Denys, ‘Whistler and Lady Meux’, Journal of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1974, pp. 36-43, at pp. 38-43.

Websites

• The Frick Collection website at http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:288.
• Sheers, Joana, The Frick Collection website at http://www.frick.org/interact/whistlers-harmony-pink-and-grey-portrait-lady-meux.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 159).

Other

• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.