The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Chelsea Girl probably dates from 1884. ¹

The Chelsea Girl, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

On 29 June 1884 The Whitehall Review reported that Whistler was painting 'a veritable daughter of the people, with all the defiance of an offspring of the proletaire in her attitude', which may have been this portrait. ²

It was painted, according to Whistler, in 'one afternoon', and was given to Alexander Johnston Cassatt (1839-1906). ³

According to Sidney Starr (1857-1925), it was sent as a present to Alexander Johnston Cassatt in Philadelphia in 1886 when Whistler finally delivered Arrangement in Black, No. 8: Portrait of Mrs Cassatt y250, which had been started some three years earlier. ⁴

Images

Subject

Titles

One main title has been suggested:

• 'The Chelsea Girl' (1893, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago). ⁵
• 'The Chelsea Girl' (1893, Sixty-third Annual Exhibition, Philadelphia). ⁶
• 'The Chelsea Girl' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

Description

The Chelsea Girl, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

A full-length portrait of a girl, in vertical format. She stands with legs apart and hands on hips, facing the viewer. She wears a brown hat with a fairly high crown and comparatively broad brim, over dark brown hair cut short in a fringe. She wears a dark grey three-quarter length dress or coat with a very broad dark brown collar, and over this, a white apron, and cream scarf tied at her neck. She seems to be wearing gloves but this is not clear. The background is beige shading to a darker brown. Some vertical lines to left and right of the figure, and pentimenti, suggest the figure may have been painted over an earlier composition.

Sitter

The sitter was 'a coster child', according to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942). ⁸ A costermonger, coster, or costard was a street seller, mainly of fruit and vegetables, selling from a tray or barrow. Mayhew reckons there were 30,000 such street sellers in London, and discusses their children at some length, for example, under the heading 'OF THE EDUCATION OF COSTERMONGERS' CHILDREN' :

'I have used the heading of "Education," but perhaps to say "non-education," would be more suitable. Very few indeed of the costermongers' children are sent even to the Ragged Schools; and ... it is done more that the mother may be saved the trouble of tending them at home, than from any desire that the children shall acquire useful knowledge. Both boys and girls are sent out by their parents in the evening to sell nuts, oranges, &c., at the doors of the theatres, or in any public place, or "round the houses" (a stated circuit from their place of abode). This trade they pursue eagerly for the sake of "bunts," though some carry home the money they take, very honestly. The costermongers are kind to their children, "perhaps in a rough way, and the women make regular pets of them very often." One experienced man told me, that he had seen a poor costermonger's wife – one of the few who could read – instructing her children in reading; but such instances were very rare. The education of these children is such only as the streets afford; and the streets teach them, for the most part … a precocious acuteness – in all that concerns their immediate wants, business, or gratifications; a patient endurance of cold and hunger; a desire to obtain money without working for it; a craving for the excitement of gambling; an inordinate love of amusement; and an irrepressible repugnance to any settled in-door industry. ' ⁹

Technique

Technique

The Chelsea Girl, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

The background was thinly painted in shades of grey and brown. The space is not clearly defined. There are numerous pentimenti, suggesting the figure was moved: the hat was originally further to right, and her right arm, perhaps further down and to left. The final position of her left foot is unclear, and the right foot is blurred, merging into the floor. Other pentimenti suggest that a larger figure was originally painted, and rubbed out, while vertical lines to left and right of the girl do not appear to relate to the composition at all. By contrast, the face and coat were painted quite carefully, before the addition of the vivid, slashing, almost dry-brush strokes of pale pink, white, and pale yellow that convey the apron and scarf.

Whistler explained, or complained, in 1893, about the exhibition of The Chelsea Girl in Chicago:

'They have ... put prominently to the fore the girl (my present to Mr Cassatt) as though such were my completed work - sent by me as a representative finished picture! -

Whereas it is the sketch of one afternoon - or rather the first statement or beginning of a painting - I am not excusing it mind - of course it is a damn fine thing - only I should certainly never have proposed to send it to the Chicago place for the hordes of foolish people to look upon!' ¹⁰

In 2015 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art commented:

'The Chelsea Girl is representative of Whistler’s mature painting style, featuring a single, monumental figure rendered in a limited color palette. … the subject of this portrait is a working-class girl. Whistler dignifies the girl with a defiant stance and pointed gaze and depicts her using a few vigorous brushstrokes. Although parts of the painting remain seemingly unfinished, it was celebrated by critics when it was exhibited in 1893.

… Because of its sketchy style, Whistler’s working methods are visible in the painting. He used thin glazes of brown paint for the shoulders of the girl’s coat, layers of peach and rose for her face, thick yellow brushstrokes to render her scarf, and dashes of white to fill in the apron.' ¹¹

Denys Sutton compared the 'bolder handling' to that of Frans Hals (1652/1653-1666), which Whistler is known to have admired. ¹²

Conservation History

The Chelsea Girl, photograph

Unknown.

Frame

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/15

Whistler Boston 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/20

The picture as framed by 1904 is seen in the exhibition photographs reproduced above.

The Chelsea Girl, framed, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

The Chelsea Girl, frame detail

The Chelsea Girl, frame detail

The Chelsea Girl, frame detail

The Chelsea Girl, frame detail

The Chelsea Girl, frame detail

The current Flat Whistler frame bears carefully painted cloud or feather patterns and a highly decorative butterfly signature. ¹³ These painted decorations are unusually precise and may have been painted to Whistler's instructions or based on his designs.

History

Provenance

• 1884: given by Whistler to Alexander Johnston Cassatt (1839-1906);
• 1906: on his death, passed by family descent to his daughter Elsie Foster Cassatt, Mrs Plunkett Stewart (1875-1931) and thence to her daughter Doris Lurman Stewart, Mrs W. P. Wear (1910-2003) and her husband, William Potter Wear (1904-1985), of Penllyn, PA., and later of Ceciltown, MD, and to their family;
• Date unknown: sold from a private collection to a private collector;
• 2015: bought by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Whistler described the picture as a present given to A. J. Cassatt. ¹⁴

Exhibitions

• World's Columbian Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, Chicago, 1893 (cat. no. 744) as 'The Chelsea Girl'.
• Sixty-third Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1893 (cat. no. 26) as "The Chelsea Girl'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 48).

On 21 September 1893 Whistler complained about the hanging of his paintings at the World's Columbian Exhibition at Chicago:

'They are clearly scattered about the building and lost as much as possible … They have on the other hand put prominently to the fore the girl (my present to Mr Cassatt) as though such were my completed work - sent by me as a representative finished picture! -

... of course it is a damn fine thing - only I should certainly never have proposed to send it to the Chicago place for the hordes of foolish people to look upon! I ought to have been consulted.' ¹⁵

Nevertheless it went on the Philadelphia, where it hung conspicuously on a wall with Arrangement in Black and Brown: The Fur Jacket y181, La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine y050, and Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell y242 and works by other artists. ¹⁶

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/15

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/20

These photographs show the painting hanging in the 1904 Memorial Exhibition in Boston.

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. 314), plate 200, as 'The Chelsea Girl'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• World's Columbian Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, Chicago, 1893 (cat. no. 744) as 'The Chelsea Girl'.

Journals 1855-1905

• The Whitehall Review, 29 June 1884.
• Coffin, William A., 'The Columbian Exposition - II. Fine Arts: The United States Section,' Nation, vol. 57, 10 August 1893, p. 97.
• 'Whistler, Dannat, Sargent,' Art Amateur, vol. 29, no. 6, November 1893, p. 134.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, New York, 2004, pp. 180, 291-93, 295-96.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., 'Maud Franklin', in: Ruth Fine (ed.), James McNeill Whistler: A Reexamination, Studies in the History of Art, vol. 19, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 13-26, at p. 21.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 74.
• Pennell, E. R. and J., The Life of James McNeill Whistler, Philadelphia, revised edition, 1920, p. 257, repr. f.p. 416.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 389, 563.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, pp. 39-41, 46, repr. fig 43.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 104.

Books, General

• Carr, Carolyn Kinder, Revisiting the white city: American art at the 1893 World's Fair, National Museum of American Art, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1993, pp. 180, 182.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner (ed.), Walter Sickert: the Complete Writings on Art, Oxford, 2000, pp. 510-11.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Representative Modern Masters, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1920 (cat. no. 251) as 'Chelsea Girl'.
• Sargent, Whistler and Mary Cassatt, Art Institute of Chicago & Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1954 (cat. no. 118).
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 51).
• Sweet, Frederick A. (ed.), James McNeill Whistler, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, NY, 1968 (cat. no. 36).
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978, introduction, checklist.
• Dorment, Richard, and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1994-1995 (cat. no. 129).
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 56-57, 59, 63 note 59, repr. fig. 46.

Journals 1906-Present

• Starr, Sidney, 'Personal Recollections of Whistler', Atlantic Monthly, vol. 101, April 1908, pp. 528-37, p. 534.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• Sickert, Walter, 'With Wisest Sorrow', The Daily Telegraph, London, 25 April 1925.

Websites

• 'Crystal Bridges announces acquisitions spanning 19th century to contemporary American art: From an iconic work by James McNeill Whistler to a site-specific commission by Maya Lin', 11 September 2015, website at https://crystalbridges.org/blog.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 299).

Other

• None.