The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 234
Portrait of Mrs Forster
Date
Portrait of Mrs Forster dates from between 1881 and 1884. 1
1881: On 16 December 1881 Whistler, in London, wrote to his sister-in-law, 'it is most impossible for me to get up today or tomorrow - for I have the old boy and Mrs Forster without intermission upon my hands.' 2
1881/1884: According to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), he saw Whistler at work on a portrait of Mrs Forster 'black on black', and the portrait was destroyed. 3
1884: The artist Jacques Émile Blanche (1861-1942) also claimed that he saw a portrait of 'Mrs Forster, arrangement en noir', in Whistler's Tite Street studio in 1884. 4
Images
Portrait of Mrs Forster, Whereabouts Unknown
Subject
Titles
Suggested titles are as follows:
- 'Mrs Forster, arrangement en noir' (1905, J. E. Blanche). 5
- 'Portrait of Mrs Forster' (1980, YMSM). 6
Blanche's title is really a description, so 'Portrait of Mrs Forster' is the preferred title.
Description
Described as a portrait of a woman 'black on black.' 7
Sitter
Amy Leslie Worth (Mrs Matthew Forster) (1852-1904). Her husband, Matthew Forster (1826-1881), was a barrister, of Frere, Forster and Frere, solicitors. Their daughter Yvonne Isabella Forster (1877-1965) posed for a pastel Portrait of Miss Yvonne Forster m0838 in the early 1880s.
Technique
Technique
Unknown.
Conservation History
Unknown.
Frame
Unknown.
History
Provenance
Unknown.
Exhibitions
Unknown.
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. 234) as 'Portrait of Mrs Forster'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- None.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
Monographs
- None.
Books on Whistler
- None.
Books, General
- Robins, Anna Gruetzner (ed.), Walter Sickert: the Complete Writings on Art, Oxford, 2000, pp. 178-88, 194-96.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- None.
Journals 1906-Present
- Blanche, Jacques-Émile, 'James McNeill Whistler', Renaissance Latine, vol. 4, no. 6, 15 June 1905, pp. 353-78, at p. 358.
- Sickert, Walter Richard, 'The New Life of Whistler', The Fortnightly Review, vol. 84, December 1908, p. 1027.
- Sickert, Walter Richard, ‘Where Paul and I differ’, Art News, no. 14, 10 February 1910, p. 113.
Websites
- None.
Unpublished
- None.
Other
- None.
Notes:
1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 234).
2: Whistler to H. E. Whistler, [16 December 1881], GUW #06695; the 'old boy' may have been Sir Henry Cole, see Portrait of Sir Henry Cole y233.
3: Sickert 1908 B [more], p. 1027; Sickert 1910 [more].
4: Blanche 1905 [more], at p. 358.
5: Blanche 1905 [more], at p. 358.
6: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 234).
7: Sickert 1908 B [more], p. 1027; Sickert 1910 [more].