The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Little White Sofa was probably painted in the late 1890s, possibly in 1898, and was certainly signed about that time.

Originally it was thought that it was painted around 1883 or 1884. ¹ However, although Whistler was returning in the 1890s to compositions and subjects that had fascinated him from the 1880s, the technique in this little panel is different, and more like his late work.

The Little White Sofa, Fogg Art Museum

Note en rouge: L'Eventail, Freer Gallery of Art

1883/1884: There are similarities in the pose, dress and composition between this and Note en rouge: L'Eventail y256. The technique. however, appears to be different. Note en rouge: L'Eventail y256 was painted with more fluid brushstrokes, and appears to be more finished and in better condition than The Little White Sofa y258.The Little White Sofa has rough, bolder brushwork, despite its small scale.

1898/1899: The butterfly signature, at lower right, suggests a much later date, in the late 1890s. Although it is quite possible that the signature was a later addition, added when it was put up for sale, this raises questions about the dating that have not been fully resolved.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• Possibly 'Resting' (1898, Goupil). ²
• 'A Girl' (1899, A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Dublin). ³
• 'The Little White Sofa' (1905, ISSPG). ⁴
• 'Le petit sopha blanc. – The Little White Sofa' (1905, Paris). ⁵
• 'Girl on a White Sofa' and 'Girl in Yellow Lying on a White Couch' (date unknown, Fogg Art Museum). ⁶
• 'The Little White Sofa' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

'The Little White Sofa' is the preferred title.

Description

The Little White Sofa, Fogg Art Museum

A study of a draped model lying on a sofa, in horizontal format. She wears a pale yellow robe and an orange cap or scarf, edged with a grey ribbon, on her head. There is a suggestion of white flowers and green leaves pinned to her hair or to the cap at right. The sofa is white. Some pale grey-blue material with a few flecks of orange on it is thrown over the back of the sofa, with a white fan lying on it, along the top. The model's face is tilted down, and rests on her left hand.

Sitter

Unknown.

Technique

Technique

The Little White Sofa, Fogg Art Museum

The panel does not appear to have an undercoat, and the wood shows through the thin paint. There are signs of pentimenti, and in particular, it is possible that there was originally a seated figure, sitting at the right end of the sofa and facing forward (if it is not a figure then there are some very odd shapes and shadows in the upper right area).

The figure and sofa are painted rather untidily, with jerky strokes of a soft, pointed brush, on the reddish panel. The strongly rounded shape of her curved hip was painted and outlined carefully. Long strokes with a broader brush were used for the white sofa.

Conservation History

The Little White Sofa, photograph, 1980

Unknown. The surface has suffered some minor damage. There is a little paint loss at the upper right edge. The panel was framed at an unknown date with a narrow strip of beading on all sides.

Frame

The Little White Sofa, frame

ca 1930: framed in America by M. Grieve, in a Grau-style frame. ⁸ An impressed inscription on the verso of the frame reads: 'GRIEVE CO / HAND CARVED / NEW YORK & LONDON'.

History

Provenance

• 1896/1899: bought by Alexander Arnold Hannay (1858-1927), London.
• 1921: with W. B. Paterson, London dealer;
• 1922: sold through Scott & Fowles, New York dealers, to Hunt Henderson (1869-1939), New Orleans;
• 1939: bequeathed by him to Tulane University, New Orleans;
• 1941: sold through the Macdonald Gallery, New York, to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), New York, April 1941;
• 1943: bequeathed by him to Harvard University in 1943.

It was probably one of the paintings sold by Whistler in 1896 when he wrote to Ernest George Brown (1851-1915) of The Fine Art Society, London, when he wrote, 'those two particular little pictures are gone - I mean the girl on the sofa.' ⁹ Alternatively it may have been exhibited as 'Resting' with the Goupil Gallery in 1898.

It was certainly owned by A. A. Hannay by 1899, when he lent it to A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings in Dublin (cat. no. 81, the lender's name being given incorrectly as 'A. N. Hannay'). He also lent it to the Whistler Memorial Exhibitions in London and Paris in 1905.

Exhibitions

• 1898: Possibly A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 23) as 'Resting' (see Resting y497).
• 1899: A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 81) as 'A Girl'.
• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 98) as 'The Little White Sofa'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 53) as 'Le petit sopha blanc. – The Little White Sofa'.

A Dublin newspaper commented in 1899, possibly on this painting, 'The little girl ... is, of course, enchanting, in colour, pose, painting—everything'. ¹⁰ However, since Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander y129 was in the same exhibition, it is more likely to have been the favoured work.

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. 258), plate 176, as 'The Little White Sofa'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Possibly A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 23) as 'Resting'.
• A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 81) as 'A Girl'.
• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 98) as 'The Little White Sofa'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 53) as 'Le petit sopha blanc. – The Little White Sofa'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Possibly Dublin Daily Express, Dublin, 22 April 1899, p. 3.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

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, p. 191 (cat. no. 212).
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 170 (cat. no. 146).

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard University Art Museums/Yale University Press, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008 (cat. no. 450), p. 424, repr.

EXHIBITION:

• Loan Collection of Works by James McNeill Whistler, National Gallery, London, 1912 (cat. no. 7) as 'Resting'.
• Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, courtesy of the Henderson Family of New Orleans, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, 1937.
• Master Paintings from the Fogg Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1977.
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, repr. fig. 50.1, p. 145.
• For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 2004.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Fogg Art Museum website at https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/230331.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 270).

Other

• None.