The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Portrait of Maud Franklin dates from 1886. ¹

On 1 July 1886 Malcolm Charles Salaman (1855-1940) wrote that recently he had seen a painting 'almost ready for exhibition' in Whistler's studio:

'[A] full length figure of a girl in an out-door black dress, with a fur cape and a becoming hat trimmed with flowers. The face is daintily pretty and piquant and the grace and spontaneity of the attitude are charming. She stands against a dark background ... The painting of the head is as refined and beautiful a piece of work as I have ever seen.' ²

Whistler and Portrait of Maud Franklin, photograph, GUL Whistler PH1/120

Salaman's description fits a painting in the background of a photograph of Whistler in his Fulham Road studio, dating from 1886/1888, now in the Whistler Collection in Glasgow University Library. ³

The artist Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) wrote that he had seen Whistler at work on several portraits of 'Maud' ̶ Maud Franklin (1857-1939) ̶ which were probably Portrait of Maud Franklin y353, Harmony in Black, No. 10 y357, and Maud y358. ⁴

Images

Subject

Titles

Only one title has been suggested:

• 'Portrait of Maud Franklin' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

Description

Whistler and Portrait of Maud Franklin, photograph, albumen print, GUL Whistler PH1/120

The photograph of the painting in Whistler's studio shows that it was a full-length portrait of a young woman, standing against a dark background. She wears a long-sleeved coat or dress, its simple A-line skirt having a broad trim round the hem. A fur tippet or cape is arranged round her shoulders. Her left arm rests below her waist, supporting her right arm, the right hand being raised nearly to her chin. Her head is tilted to her right, and she wears a round-brimmed hat adorned with flowers.

This appears to correspond to the description given by Malcolm Charles Salaman (1855-1940) except that the dress is not black. He described it as follows:

'a full length figure of a girl in an out-door black dress, with a fur cape and a becoming hat trimmed with flowers. The face is daintily pretty and piquant and the grace and spontaneity of the attitude are charming. She stands against a dark background.' ⁶

Sitter

The model was undoubtedly Maud Franklin (1857-1939), although she is not seen in person, in the photograph.

Technique

Technique

Whistler and Portrait of Maud Franklin, photograph, albumen print, GUL Whistler PH1/120

The photograph of Whistler painting this portrait shows him mixing his paints with a very long brush on his table palette. This photograph indicates the scale and proportions of the portrait, on a canvas of approximately 191 x 91 cm (75 x 36").

Malcolm Charles Salaman (1855-1940) wrote: 'The painting of the head is as refined and beautiful a piece of work as I have ever seen.' ⁷

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Whistler and Portrait of Maud Franklin, photograph, albumen print, GUL PH1/120

The picture is shown in its frame in this late 1880s photograph.

History

Provenance

Unknown.

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime, although the one photograph of it shows it framed, and M. C. Salaman, in June or July 1886, thought it was 'almost ready for exhibition'. ⁸

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. 353), plate 197, as 'Portrait of Maud Franklin'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• Salaman, Malcolm Charles, 'In Whistler's Studio', The Court and Society Review, vol. 3, 1 July 1886, pp. 588-90.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, p. 26.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, repr. fig 1.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, photograph repr. f.p. 185.

Books, General

• Robins, Anna Gruetzner (ed.), Walter Sickert: the Complete Writings on Art, Oxford, 2000, p. 195.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• 'In Pursuit of the Butterfly', Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, 1994-1995, photogravure exhibited.
• MacDonald, Margaret, and Patricia de Montfort, An American in London: Whistler and the Thames, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Addison Gallery of American Art, Freer Gallery of Art, 2013-2014 (cat. no. 97, photograph).

Journals 1906-Present

• Sickert, Walter R., ‘Where Paul and I differ’, Art News, No. 14, 10 February 1910, p. 113.
• 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.
• MacDonald, Margaret, 'James McNeill Whistler: An Artist on Artists', Visual Culture in Britain , Volume 16, 2015, Issue 2, Visualizing Identities: The Male Artist in Nineteenth-Century Britain, fig. 7, online at http://www.tandfonline.com.

Websites

• Glasgow University Library website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk.

Unpublished

• Kelly, Sarah Elizabeth, Camera's Lens and Mind's Eye: James McNeill Whistler and the Science of Art, PhD thesis, Columbia University: 2010, fig. 71, p. 303.

Other

• None.