The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Study of a Head dates from between 1885 and 1895. ¹

Study of a Head, Columbus Museum of Art

The brushwork and technique could date from as early as 1885, but the butterfly signature (which is practically invisible) suggests a later date, about 1895.

Images

Subject

Titles

Possible titles include:

• 'Study of a Head' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ²
• 'Mr. Graves, Printseller' (1942, Parke-Bernet). ³
• 'Study of a Head' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

Since the identity of the sitter is not certain, 'Study of a Head' is the preferred title.

Description

Study of a Head, Columbus Museum of Art

A head and shoulders portrait of a young man, in vertical format. It shows the head in profile to right. He has a big moustache and short brown hair, and wears a brown coat over a white shirt, and a brown felt hat with a rounded crown.

Sitter

Study of a Head, Columbus Museum of Art

Unidentified.

An identification of the sitter as Graves, a print seller, was made by Parke-Bernet in 1942, but this may be incorrect. The Graves, father and son, lived near Whistler when he was at 454 Fulham Road, Chelsea, and had dealings with him from about 1877 to 1891 but their extensive correspondence (Houghton Library, Harvard University) mentions no portrait.

The sitter appears too young to be Henry Graves (1806-1892), as suggested in 1954. ⁵ Henry was the founder of the firm of print sellers and a founder of the Art Journal and Illustrated London News.

Henry's son, Algernon Graves (1845-1922), worked in the family firm and wrote many art reference books including comprehensive catalogues of Reynolds' paintings (1899), and of RA exhibitors (1905). A portrait of Algernon in 1878 by Rosa Frances Corder (1853-1893) was reproduced by Graves in 1918. ⁶ At the age of thirty-three he was plump, moustached, with receding hair, and already appeared older than the man in this portrait. According to Williamson, Whistler admired Rosa Corder's portrait of Algernon Graves but there is no evidence that Whistler painted him. ⁷ A photograph of Graves reproduced by M. B. Huish in 1897 shows him with a moustache and long side-whiskers. ⁸ His profile is not unlike the sitter except that the chin is rather heavier.

It is also possible that it could be identified as one of several missing portraits of men by Whistler, such as Portrait of Jerome Elwell y536, but unfortunately no photograph of him has been located.

The Birnie Philips including Ronald M. Philip, GUL Whistler PH1/165

Another missing painting, the Portrait of Ronald Murray Philip y534, provides a stronger case. The sitter was Whistler's brother-in-law Ronald Murray Philip (1871-1940). The etching Ronald Philip (The Hunterian) by Ronald's sister, Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896), shows him at some time between 1888 and 1895. ⁹ At a later date, he is seen second from right in the photograph reproduced above.

Technique

Technique

Study of a Head, Columbus Museum of Art

It is painted on coarse canvas, the paint applied thinly, with diagonal strokes of the brush around the face, and thicker impasto on the moustache and collar.

Conservation History

Study of a Head, Columbus Museum of Art

Study of a Head, photograph, 1940

Unknown. An early photograph shows no radical difference.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• 1898: probably owned by Charles Alva Walker (1848-1925), Boston.
• By 1904: Francis Bartlett (1836-1913), Boston;
• 1913: bequeathed to his son-in-law Herbert Montgomery Sears (d. 1942), Boston;
• 1942: sold at auction, Parke-Bernet, New York, 17 October 1942 (lot 137) as 'Mr. Graves, Printseller', and bought by Miss A. Linch (fl. 1942);
• 1943: Fred W. Schumacher (1863-1957?);
• 1957: bequeathed to the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts.

According to the auction catalogue of 1942 it was owned in 1898 by 'Charles A. Walker' of Boston, MA. This was probably Charles Alva Walker (1848-1925), painter, etcher and engraver, a member of the Boston Art Club, the Copley Society (Boston) and the London Print Sellers Association. He is said to have invented the term 'monotype' around 1880 and, together with Whistler's friend Otto Henry Bacher (1856-1909) and William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) and others, established a 'Monotype Club' in New York in the 1880s. He also advised several major collectors in building up their collections. ¹⁰

Study of a Head y427 was lent by the lawyer Francis Bartlett, trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to the Whistler memorial exhibition in Boston in 1904 (cat. no. 52). On Bartlett's death in 1913, it passed to his son-in-law, Herbert M. Sears, also of Boston. ¹¹ At his death in February 1942, it was sold at auction at Parke-Bernet, 17 October 1942 (lot 137) as 'Mr. Graves, Printseller', and bought by Miss A. Linch for $1750. She sold it to Fred W. Schumacher, who lent it from 1943 to the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio, to which he bequeathed it in June 1957.

Exhibitions

• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 52) as 'Study of a Head'.

No exhibition in Whistler's lifetime has been identified.

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. 427), plate 264, as 'Study of a Head'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 52) as 'Study of a Head'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Huish, Marcus B. (ed.), Year's Art, London, 1897, photograph of A. Graves repr. f.p. 290.

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. 164, cat. no. 52 as 'Study of a Head'.

Books, General

• Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, The Frederick W. Schumacher Collection,Columbus, OH, 1976, pp. 39-40.
• Valentiner, W. R., and Paul Wescher, The Frederick W. Schumacher Collection, Columbus, Ohio, 1955 (cat. no. 4), repr. p. 11, as 'Portrait of Mr Graves, printseller'.
• Williamson, George Charles, Murray Marks and his Friends, London and New York, 1919, pp. 133-34.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITIONS:

• Sweet, Frederick A. (ed.), Sargent, Whistler and Mary Cassatt, Art Institute of Chicago and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1954 (cat. no. 110) as 'Mr Graves, the Printseller'.
• Cassatt, Whistler, Sargent, Grand Rapids Art Gallery, MI, 1955 (cat. no. 47, repr.).
• Eleven Americans - 1860-1960, Art Institute of Zanesville, OH, 1960 as 'Portrait of a Man'.
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 101).

SALES:

• Parke-Bernet, New York, 17 October 1942 (lot 137) as 'Mr. Graves, Printseller'.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Columbus Museum of Art website at https://www.columbusmuseum.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 134, 134a).

Other

• Graves, Algernon, Art Sales, from early in the eighteenth century to early in the twentieth century, 3 vols., London, 1918, I, portrait of Graves by Rosa Corder repr. frontispiece.