The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple: Portrait of Miss Milly Finch dates from the early 1880s, probably between 1882 and 1885. ¹

This unfinished portrait of Milly Finch appears to be the only one of the three known oil portraits of her not listed by Whistler in 1886. ²

Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple: Portrait of Miss Milly Finch, The Hunterian

Harmony in Coral and Blue: Miss Finch, The Hunterian

Harmony in Blue and Violet: Miss Finch, The Hunterian

It is dated by the costume and by comparison with other portraits of Milly Finch, Harmony in Coral and Blue: Miss Finch y237 and Harmony in Blue and Violet: Miss Finch y239.

Images

Subject

Titles

Whistler's original title is not known. The known title varies only in punctuation:

• 'Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple (Portrait of Miss Millie Finch)' (1936, Hunterian). ³
• 'Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple: Portrait of Miss Milly Finch' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

In 1886 Whistler listed among the full-length portraits in his studio, 'Milly. Finch - Red - ... / Millie Finch - Violet - / Blue. Girl - / Millie Finch Black.' ⁵ It is not really clear which one is which, and despite the touch of coral red in her scarf, seen also in Harmony in Coral and Blue: Miss Finch y237, this painting, 'Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple: Portrait of Miss Milly Finch', does not appear to fit these titles. However, the titles suggest that it was the colour harmonies, rather than the individual model, that was the subject of these pictures.

Description

Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple: Portrait of Miss Milly Finch, The Hunterian

A full-length portrait of a young woman facing front. She has dark brown eyes and hair, cut in a curly fringe. She wears a purple head-scarf tied at the back, the ends draped forward over her breast, and a coral-red scarf or fichu over her shoulders. Her fawn or khaki dress is close-fitting, with a black belt knotted at the front, and three-quarter-length sleeves. Her hands hang at her sides, her right hand holding an open fan. The background is cream shading to a grey floor. The bottom of the skirt has been rubbed out. The canvas is in vertical format.

Sitter

Millie Finch (fl. 1875-1885). Milly Finch – possibly Amelia or Millicent Finch – has not been identified. Milly may have been 'Millicent J. Finch', who would have been fifteen in 1884. Milly seems to have modelled for Whistler when Maud Franklin (1857-1939) was ill.

Whistler called her 'the Red Girl', which might refer to the red scarf around her neck, or to another portrait in which she posed in a red dress. ⁶ He painted three oil portraits of Milly in the mid-1880s, which are closely related to this oil, namely Harmony in Coral and Blue: Miss Finch y237, and Harmony in Blue and Violet: Miss Finch y239.

Technique

Technique

Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple: Portrait of Miss Milly Finch, The Hunterian

The canvas is a coarse, heavy-weight plain tabby weave, with conspicuous slubs in the weave providing a varied texture overall. It appears to have been prepared with two ground layers, of pale and dark grey. The canvas has the stamp of Blanchet, 20 rue Saint-Benoît, Paris, on the verso, although the model was almost certainly painted in London.

The paint in the background and on the dress is thinly applied with wide brushes, in contrast to the smaller, more opaque dabs of colour in the face, scarf and headdress. There are some scumbled and scraped areas alongside more thinly applied paint. Her head has been rubbed down, and then repainted with a few rough strokes of the brush. Her eyes were painted with very thin paint. Her right hand and part of the fan have been rubbed down.

Edith Emma Marzetti (1865-1924) described Whistler's painting method in the early 1880s, in relation to another full length portrait, Scherzo in Blue: The Blue Girl y226:

'Whistler's mode of painting was most comical: he stood yards away from the picture with his brush, and would move it as though he were painting; he would then take a hop, skip and jump across the room, and put a dab of paint on the canvas; he also used to wet his finger, and gently rub portions of his picture.' ⁷

Conservation History

It is just possible that a portrait of another sitter was begun on the canvas by Whistler before his bankruptcy in 1879, destroyed by him then, and the canvas re-acquired later and re-used.

The canvas has apparently been folded, and there are several horizontal creases and ridged lines across it, some of which have been retouched. It has been relined at some time, possibly to repair the resulting fracturing and damage to the paint. The lining canvas is of a lighter weight, and finer weave than the original. There is some retouching, which is concealed by the slightly discoloured and streaky varnish. It is in generally sound condition. ⁸

Frame

204.2 x 101.7 x 6.2 cm. The stamp of Emile Blanchet (1852-1931) is on the verso of the stretcher: 'BLANCHET / 20 / RUE SAINT BENOIT / PARIS'

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler's studio at the time of his death, and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1935: given by Miss R. Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Due to the terms of Miss Birnie Philip's gift to the University of Glasgow, it is not lendable.

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. 238), plate 158, as 'Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple: Portrait of Miss Milly Finch'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Chaleyssin, Patrick, James McNeill Whistler: The Strident Cry of the Butterfly, Bournemouth, 1995, pp. 88-89, repr.
• Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, repr. pl. 69.
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 122-23, repr.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• James McNeill Whistler, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 1936 (cat. no. 21) as 'Harmony in Fawn Colour and Purple (Portrait of Miss Millie Finch)'.
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 203, repr. fig 134.6 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk.
• Art UK website at https://artuk.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 202).

Other

• Stoner, Joyce Hill, Textured Surfaces: Technique, Facture, and Friendship in the Work of James McNeill Whistler, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, 1995.