The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe dates from 1884. It was probably painted soon after July 1884 when Archibald Campbell (1846-1913) and Lady Janey Sevilla Campbell (Lady Archibald Campbell) (ca 1846-d.1923) initiated a series of open-air dramatic performances at Coombe Woods in Surrey.

Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe, The Hunterian

Shakespeare's As You Like It, with Lady Archibald as Orlando, was the first play performed. ¹

Images

Subject

Titles

The sole known title was that used in Whistler's one-man exhibition:

• 'Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe' (1886, Dowdeswell). ²
• 'Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe' (1980, YMSM). ³

Description

Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe, The Hunterian

A figure study in vertical format. A woman (dressed as a man) stands with legs apart and arms folded on a grassy lawn in front of green trees. She wears close-fitting tights and a laced-up jacket, a three-quarter length cloak. She carries a flat bag with a long strap crossing over her chest. Her hair is concealed under a jaunty hat with a narrow brim. The panel is signed with a butterfly at lower right.

Site

Coombe Woods at Dr McGragh's hydropathic establishment near Coombe Hill Farm, Norbiton, Kingston on Thames.

There is a drawing by Whistler in the Hunterian that is related to Coombe Hill Farm, though not to this painting (r. and v.: Trellis m0848).

Sitter

Janey Sevilla Campbell (Lady Archibald Campbell) (ca 1846-d.1923) posed in the early 1880s for several life-size full length portraits, only one of which has survived: Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell y242. Lord and Lady Archibald Campbell lived at Coombe Hill Farm, Norbiton, Kingston on Thames.

Lady Archibald later recalled, 'It was the love of the Beautiful which led to the inception of playing pastorals under realistic conditions, no discordant note of colour was struck out of tune with Nature's key.'

In this small painting she is portrayed in the role of Orlando, the son of Sir Rowland de Boys, in the forest scene of Shakespeare's comedy, As You Like It. She is cross-dressed, wearing tunic and tights, 'feminine' in shape but in an aggressively male pose. ⁴ The costumes for the production were designed by Edward William Godwin (1833-1886), and reflect their shared interest in historic costume revival. Godwin's drawings for the costumes, dated 27 July 1884, are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. ⁵

Frank Harris recalled that about this time Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) 'went about declaring ... Lady Archie more charming than Rosalind, and Mr. Whistler an incomparable artist'. ⁶

According to a letter from the sitter, Whistler considered the portrait 'successful'. ⁷

Comments

An unsigned oil sketch, not painted by Whistler but about the same size as this oil, and with the same costume, is in the Honolulu Academy of Arts (Acc. No. 77.1). A painting attributed to Whistler of a woman in tights, 54 ½ x 19" (private collection, U.S.A.), was reproduced by Pousette-Dart with the title 'Lady Archibald Campbell as Orlando'. Prof. A. McLaren Young considered both the attribution and the identification most unlikely, as do the authors of this edition. ⁸

Technique

Composition

A preparatory drawing for this work can be found on the verso of Whistler's panel Violet and Rose: La Belle de Jour y319 in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.

According to Soros, the portrait 'greatly resembles a drawing in one of Godwin's sketchbooks.' ⁹ Drawings for the costumes by Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. ¹⁰

Technique

Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe, The Hunterian

It is on a small, 2 mm thick, wooden panel, primed in dark grey. It is painted in vertical format with the grain running vertically. ¹¹ The paint was thinned, possibly without any added medium, and was applied freely with a small brush, about 6.4 mm (¼") wide for the landscape. The brushstrokes stop short of the edge. The white blossoms behind the figure were painted with a smaller brush, possibly in a chalk or barium sulphate medium (not zinc or lead white).

The model was originally standing with her feet nearer together, and her left foot near the centre of the panel. Her face was painted with thin paint and barely tinted with colour, the features being defined with a tiny pointed brush in unusual detail. The lacing on Lady Archie's bodice was not painted but scraped out, possibly with the pointed end of a brush.

Conservation History

There is a vertical scratch at left, and some fine craquelure. ¹²

The panel has a split vertically up the centre, and minor paint loss occurred along this split. The panel was adhered to an auxiliary support of hardboard in order to stabilise the vertical crack, which occurred in 1969 when it was on exhibition; the auxiliary support was applied for the Hunterian by a private restorer, Harry Woolford. A sliver of support has been lost at the upper right corner, since the auxiliary support was added, and after a glossy non-original varnish – now yellowed – was applied overall, running over the sides of the panel. ¹³

Frame

Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe, The Hunterian

Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe, frame detail

A Grau-style frame, dating from ca 1892. ¹⁴ Size, 42.2 x 36.4 x 6.0 cm.

History

Provenance

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

Exhibitions

• 1886: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 24) as 'Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe'.

It was exhibited by Messrs Dowdeswell in 1886 (cat. no. 24) the price being estimated by Dowdeswell at £25, but increased to £30 by Whistler in a marked catalogue. ¹⁵

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. 317), plate 218, as 'Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 24) as 'Note in Green and Brown: Orlando at Coombe'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'As You Like It in the open air', The Saturday Review, 6 June 1885, pp. 748-49.
• de Kay, Charles, 'Whistler. The head of the Impressionists', Art Review, vol. 1, no. 1, 1886, pp. 1-3, at p. 2.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, New York, 2004, p. 162.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 180-83, repr. fig. 173.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 305.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, p. 71, repr. fig. 67.
• Spencer, Robin, The Aesthetic Movement, London and New York, 1972, p. 108.
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, p. 100.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 104.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, p. 193.

Books, General

• Campbell, Lady Archibald, Rainbow Music; or the Philosophy of Harmony in Colour-Grouping, London, 1886, pp. 9-10;.
• Harbron, Dudley, The Conscious Stone: The Life of Edward William Godwin, London, 1949, pp. 167-68.
• Harris, Frank, Contemporary Portraits, New York, 1915, p. 101.
• Hausberg, Margaret Dunwoody, The Prints of Theodore Roussel: A Catalogue Raisonné, Bronxville, New York, 1991, p. 44.
• Pousette-Dart, Nathaniel, (ed.), James McNeill Whistler,(with introduction by Joseph & Elizabeth Robins Pennell), New York, 1924, repr. pl. 36.
• Soros, Susan Weber (ed.), E. W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer, Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, New York, 1999, p. 36.
• Spencer, Robin, The Aesthetic Movement, London and New York, 1972, pp. 107-10, repr. p. 109.
• Studing, Richard, Shakespeare in American Painting. A Catalogue from the late eighteenth century to the present, Farleigh Dickinson University Press, Rutherford, 1993, pp. 23, 27 note 21, 138-39 (cat. no. 867) repr.
• Syme, Alison Mairi, A Touch of Blossom: John Singer Sargent and the Queer Flora of Fin-de-siècle Art, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA, 2009, p. 277 note 156.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 49), repr. pl. 17.
• Victorian paintings 1837-1890, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1968 (cat. no. 46).
• Young, A. McLaren, Glasgow University's Pictures, Colnaghi, London, 1973 (cat. no. 96).
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Whistler Pastels and Related Works in the Hunterian Art Gallery, Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, 1984, p. 15 (not exhibited).
• 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, p. 173 (not exhibited).
• Black, Peter, James McNeill Whistler: selected works from the Hunterian Art Gallery, Dixon Gallery, 2004-2005; Taft Museum of Art, 2005; Philbrook Museum of Art, 2005; Boca Raton Museum of Art, 2005-2006; Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 2006; Nevada Museum of Art, 2007; Tyler Museum of Art, 2007 (cat. no. 3) p. 39.
• Sutton, Denys, and Martin Hopkinson, ホイスラー展. Whistler Exhibition in Japan, Tokyo, 1987 (cat. no. 17).

Journals 1906-Present

• Newton, Joy, La Chauve-Souris et le Papillon. Correspondance Montesquiou-Whistler, Glasgow, 1990, pp. 1-2.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details=ecatalogue.41299.
• Art UK website at https://artuk.org.
• Hausberg, Meg, and Victoria Sancho Lobis, Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions, Art Institute of Chicago, 2015, URL.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat.nos. 165-6).

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.