The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Study in Brown dates from the 1890s, probably between 1894 and 1896. ¹ It is dated partly from the butterfly signature, but that is not conclusive.

Study in Brown, photo

The Girl in Red, Private collection

It was dated circa 1884 in the 1980 catalogue raisonné, by comparison with the pose and technique of The Girl in Red y312, but unfortunately neither portrait is easy to date.

Study in Brown, Muskegon Museum of Art

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

It has recently been suggested that it was another portrait of the model for The Little Rose of Lyme Regis y449 painted in 1896. The museum website comments:

'A Study in Rose and Brown was painted shortly before the artist’s death in 1903. Whistler met the subject, Rosie Rendall, during a trip to the village of Lyme Regis in Dorset. The painting bears all the hallmarks of Whistler – the atmospheric handling of tone and color, a flat, almost decorative picture plane, and the simple but elegant rendering.' ²

In technique, this is not impossible, but the identity of the model is in question.

La Toison rouge, The Hunterian

The technique and pose can also be compared to another girl's portrait, La Toison rouge y501, which is dated 1896/1900. However, it is very hard to be definitive!

Images

Subject

Titles

Suggested titles are:

• 'Study in Brown' (1905, ISSPG). ³
• 'A Study in Rose and Brown' (1908, Macbeth). ⁴
• 'Study in Brown' (1980, YMSM). ⁵
• 'A Study in Rose Brown' (2017, Muskegon Art Museum). ⁶

The first published title, 'Study in Brown', although not necessarily Whistler's, is preferred.

Description

Study in Brown, Muskegon Museum of Art

A half length portrait of a girl with long brown hair, in vertical format. She sits with her arms crossed, hands resting in her lap, in three quarter view to right, but looking at the viewer. She wears a pinkish-brown dress with a black yoke.

Sitter

Despite common features shared by many of Whistler's child portraits, there is no conclusive proof of the identity of the girl.

Study in Brown, Muskegon Museum of Art

Study in Brown, photo

When the painting was acquired, it was thought to represent Rosa Beatrice Rendall (1886-1958) who posed for The Little Rose of Lyme Regis y449. In American Pictures and their Paintings, L. M. Bryant commented somewhat emotionally:

'In his "Study in Rose and Brown", ... we feel that little Rose's calm rebellion ... against the whole world – has a suggestion of a child understanding far beyond her years. Back of those eyes of the blacksmith's daughter is an uncanny spirit of mocking self-assurance ... She is as individual a personality, with her searching eyes of almost uncanny intelligence, as the artist himself. Now look at her hands and see if we can rid ourselves of her influence as a living power. Such a child lives as does Maggie Tolliver and Little Nell.' ⁷

However, the face appears rather longer and the hair a different colour from Rosie Rendall's, although the girl could have been another Lyme Regis model.

It has also been suggested that it was a portrait of Olga Alberta Caracciolo (1871–1930/1931) because of her later ownership of the portrait. ⁸ Unfortunately, it really does not look like her and is more likely to be a portrait of a local girl in London.

If, as the signature suggests, the portrait dates from the mid- to late-1890s, it could be one of several missing portraits, such as Head of a Girl y432, or Devonshire Daisy y446

Technique

Technique

Study in Brown, Muskegon Museum of Art

It was painted with rather loose strokes, the paint thinned and rubbed almost to the consistency of watercolour. The figure has been outlined with a brush to accentuate the modelling, particularly around the hands.

Conservation History

Study in Brown, photograph, 1980

Study in Brown, Muskegon Museum of Art

Unknown. Photographs do not show any recent changes.

Frame

A Whistler-style frame, regilded.

History

Provenance

• 1896/1903: possibly sold by Whistler through Lawrie & Co.;
• 1904: with Lawrie & Co., who are said to have sold it to Adolph de Meyer (1868-1946);
• 1905: owned by the Baron de Meyer and/or his wife, Olga Alberta Caracciolo (1871–1930/1931), Baroness de Meyer;
• 1907: sold by the Baron de Meyer to the Macbeth Gallery, New York, 23 February 1907;
• 1914: bought by Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, 12 January 1914.

Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938) published the painting in 1904 as owned by Lawrie & Co. ⁹ According to the art dealer William Macbeth, Baron de Meyer bought this painting from Whistler through the art dealers 'Laurie [sic] and Company'. ¹⁰

Adolf de Meyer came to live in London in 1896, but it is not certain when he acquired this painting. He was married to Olga Alberta Caracciolo (1871–1930/1931), who is said to have posed to Whistler for Arrangement in Pink, Red and Purple y324, and who owned Study of a Girl's Head and Shoulders y486. In 1905 Study in Brown was lent to the London Whistler Memorial Exhibition with the Baroness de Meyer named as lender.

According to Macbeth Gallery records, the painting was sold by Baron de Meyer to them in 1907 for $7500, and sold by Macbeth to the Hackley Art Gallery in 1914 for $6750. The local paper reported that there was opposition to the purchase by some members of the local school board but the purchase was eventually approved. ¹¹ According to the museum website:

'The museum’s first director, Raymond Wyer, was a man of unique foresight. Early art acquisitions selected by Wyer included the very best world-class artists. The most notorious of Wyer’s acquisitions was a painting by James M. Whistler, Study in Rose and Brown, purchased for $6,750. It was thought by some to be scandalous to pay that kind of money for “a picture that is hard to see”. In fact, the furor over this purchase was the cause of Raymond Wyer’s resignation in protest in July 1916. Today, Study in Rose and Brown is one of the true treasures in the collection.' ¹²

Furthermore, the website comments, 'When it was purchased by the MMA at the close of the Armory Show, the painting was at the forefront of avant-garde modernism.' ¹³

Exhibitions

• 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. 22) as 'Study in Brown'.

No exhibition is recorded in Whistler's lifetime.

It was lent by the Baroness de Meyer to the Whistler memorial exhibition in London in 1905.

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. 313), plate 199, as 'Study in Brown'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 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. 22) as 'Study in Brown'.

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. 213 (cat. no. 382).
• Menpes, Mortimer, Whistler as I Knew Him, London, 1904, repr. f.p. 122.

Books, General

• Wyer, Raymond, An Art Museum – Its Concept and Conduct, Hackley Gallery of Fine Arts, Muskegon, MI, 1914, p. 31.
• Bryant, Lorinda Munson, American Pictures and their Painters, New York, 1917, p. 93, fig. 53.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Paintings by a Group of American Artists. Copley to Whistler, Macbeth Gallery, New York, 1908 (cat. no. 35) as 'A Study in Rose and Brown'.
• Exhibition of Paintings from New York, Portland Art association, Portland, OR, 1911 (cat. no. 27).
• International Exhibition of Modern Art, Association of American Paintings and Sculpture, Armory of the 69th Infantry, New York, 1913 (cat no. 1058) as 'A Study in Rose and Brown'.
• Reconstruction of the Armory Show (New York 1913), Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica & Armory of the 69th Regiment, New York 1963 (cat. no. 1058).

Journals 1906-Present

• International Studio, March 1914, p. xxxi.

Websites

• Muskegon Museum of Art website at http://www.muskegonartmuseum.org/history.
• Muskegon Museum of Art website http://www.muskegonartmuseum.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 295).

Other

• None.