The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto dates from between 1883 and 1884. ¹

Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto, Freer Gallery of Art

It is dated from the technique and the form of the butterfly signature. It was first exhibited in 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 51).

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Red and pink: La Petite Mephisto' (1884, Dowdeswell). ²
• 'Note en rouge: La petite Méphisto' (1887, Petit). ³
• 'Petite Mephiste' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ⁴
• 'Petite Méphisto... Esquisse' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). ⁵
• 'Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto' (1980, YMSM). ⁶

The name 'Mephisto' is a variant or nickname for Mephistopheles, a demon (alternatively known as Satan, Lucifer, the devil, etc) from the Faust legend. The name is associated with the Faust legend of a scholar – based on the historical Johann Georg Faust – who wagers his soul with the Devil.

The vivid red background in Whistler's painting, the red fan and the seductive pose of the model (despite her white dress), may have suggested the demonic association. Whistler's title possibly reflects his interest, in the late 1870s, in the burlesques produced at the Gaiety Theatre in London, which starred Ellen ('Nellie') Farren (1848-1904), and included Little Dr Faust (see Harmony in Blue: The Duet y196).

In contemporary culture, a fictional melodramatic villain, 'Mephisto', has appeared in comic books published by Marvel Comics (first in Silver Surfer #3, December 1968).

Description

Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto, Freer Gallery of Art

A figure study in vertical format. A young woman in a white dress sits – or rather sprawls – on a red sofa holding a large red fan. The background is a warm reddish brown, the floor a darker brown.

Sitter

Possibly Millie Finch (fl. 1875-1885). Whistler described her to Charles William Dowdeswell (1832-1915) in 1884 as 'the Red Girl'. ⁷

The colour scheme, and the woman's clothes and fan, are very like those seen in Note en rouge: L'Eventail y256.

The title, possibly inspired by memories of Little Dr Faust has led to suggestions that the model was Ellen ('Nellie') Farren (1848-1904), the dancer who took a role in that burlesque at the Gaiety Theatre in 1877/1878. ⁸ However, Whistler's painting dates from several years later, and there is no record of her posing at this later date.

Comments

Interestingly, Curry explores links with images of cafe concerts by Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834-1917), and quotes Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), who associated courtesans and actresses with magic, devilry and the colours of hell:

'Sur un fond d'une lumière infernale ou sur un fond d'aurore boréale, rouge, orangé, sulfureux, rose (le rose révélant une idée d'extase dans la frivolité, quelquefois violet (couleur affectionnée des chanoinesses, braise qui s'éteint derrière un rideau d'azur), sur ces fonds magiques, imitant diversement les feux de Bengale, s'enlève l'image variée de la beauté interlope.'

Translated: 'Against a background of hellish light, or an aurora borealis, red, orange, sulphurous, pink (the pink expressing an idea of ecstasy amid frivolity), sometimes purple (the favorite color of canonesses, like dying embers seen through an azure curtain), against magical backgrounds, variously imitating Bengal Lights, there arises the varied image of wanton beauty.' ⁹

Technique

Technique

Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto, Freer Gallery of Art

The panel appears to have been prepared with a pale grey and then a very dark ground, on which the reds appears sultry and the white, luminous.

There are signs of an earlier pose, in which the head of a woman can be made out under the vertical brushstrokes of the background, above and to the right of the model's head.

It is painted thinly and boldly, with free brushstrokes of creamy-textured paint, and some broad, almost dry-brush strokes. In the white dress, each stroke is clearly outlined, the paint being thicker along the edges of each brushstroke.

Conservation History

Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto, photograph

An old photograph shows the picture as much lighter in colour but this is probably the result of over-exposure or lighting during the photographic process. There is some cracking and abrasion of paint around the edges.

Frame

Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto, Freer Gallery of Art

1884: Large Dowdeswell, made for the 1884 exhibition [14.1 cm]. ¹⁰

History

Provenance

• 1885: bought from Messrs Dowdeswell by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934);
• 1902: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

It was exhibited in Whistler's one-man show, 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 51), and bought by H. S. Theobald in the following year. ¹¹

In June 1902, Whistler sent C. L. Freer a telegram 'Theobald paintings at Marchants') informing him that the paintings owned by Theobald were apparently for sale. ¹² Responding quickly, in August 1902 Freer bought it for $1000.

Exhibitions

• 1884: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 51) as 'Red and pink: La Petite Mephisto'.
• 1884: Annual Exhibition of Sketches, Pictures & Photography: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Mr Whistler ..., Dublin Sketching Club, Dublin, 1884 (cat. no. 238) 'Red and Pink. Petite Mephiste'.
• 1887: Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 164) as 'Note en rouge: La petite Méphisto'.
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 14) as 'Petite Mephiste'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 52) as 'Petite Méphisto ... Esquisse'.

The model was described by the Topical Times as 'a sulky diavoletta of a girl boudéing in a boudoir,' but Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921) commended the painting's 'triumphant boldness and dash.' ¹³

Later in 1884 the painting joined a large group of works exhibited in Dublin. The Dublin Daily Express defended Whistler against criticism:

'On the small drawings - caprices, nocturnes, notes in pink and red - the critical wrath of the uneducated and inexperienced waxed hot, and such complimentary remarks as "rubbish", "daubs", "unfinished", "has to be looked at from a long way off", were as plentiful as blackberries, but as time passed on and the real skill and genius of the painter were pointed out ... . the ferocity abated and a more generous and rational estimate was taken. The fact is Mr. Whistler sees nature in his own way.' ¹⁴

Whistler wrote to Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929), 'you must arrange with the man who bought the lot that remained over after the exhibition of the "Flesh color & grey", to let his collection go with me to America.' ¹⁵ Neither Whistler's trip nor the exhibition happened.

Instead, in 1887, Whistler requested loans for a show in Paris:

'I am sending some pictures and drawings of mine to a very swell exhibition in Paris - and I am most anxious to borrow from you some 14 or 15 of the little things of mine you have on the staircase and in your dining room, that I may exhibit them at the same time.' ¹⁶

Theobald was a generous lender and 'Note en rouge: La petite Méphisto' was among works shown at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1887.

Whistler then suggested Theobald's 'Little Mephisto' should be borrowed for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 but it was not sent, possibly because Theobald felt he had been asked to lend works too often. ¹⁷

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.

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. 255), plate 175, as 'Red and Pink: La Petite Mephisto'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 51) as 'Red and pink: La Petite Mephisto'.
• Annual Exhibition of Sketches, Pictures & Photography: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Mr Whistler ..., Dublin Sketching Club, Dublin, 1884 (cat. no. 238) 'Red and Pink. Petite Mephiste'.
• Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 164) as 'Note en rouge: La petite Méphisto'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 14) as 'Petite Mephiste'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 52) as 'Petite Méphisto... Esquisse'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon, ['Cigarette'], 'Whistles', The Topical Times, London, 24 May 1884.
• Anon., 'The Private View at the Dublin Sketching Club', Dublin Daily Express, Dublin, 1 December 1884, p. 5.

Journals 1855-1905

• Wedmore, Frederick, ‘Mr Whistler's Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Gray’, The Academy, vol. 25, 24 May 1884, p. 374.

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 (cat. no. 14), p. 157.
• Enaud-Lechien, Isabelle, James Whistler, le peintre et le polémiste (1834-1903), Courbevoie, 1995, p. 111.
• Glazer, Lee, Emily Jacobsen, Blyth McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor. Lovely Little Games, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2019, p. 191, detail repr. p. 190.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 170, n. 145.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, pp. 104, 107.

Books, General

• Hughes, Robert, The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes, New York, 2015, p. 114.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 144, 295, pl. 49.
• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 14 (02.147).

EXHIBITION:

• Myers, Kenneth John, Mr. Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2003, pp. 21, 93, repr. p. 62.
• Tinterow, Gary, and Geneviève Lacambre, Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, New Haven and London, 2003, 541.

Journals 1906-Present

• Anderson, Ronald, 'Whistler in Dublin, 1884', Irish Arts Review (1984-1987), Autumn, 1986, vol. 3, no. 3 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 45-51 Published by: Irish Arts Review at URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20491906.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1902.147a-b.
• Small Masterpieces: Whistler Paintings from the 1880s, Freer Gallery of Art 2005, Traditional Fine Arts Organization website at http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa257.htm (acc. 2019).

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 178).

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.