The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Head of Mrs Beaumont dates from late 1894 or 1895. ¹

Head of Mrs Beaumont, Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum

According to Christie's, it was painted in the studio of Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) at 13 Robert Street when Whistler was living at Long's Hotel in London in late 1894 or early 1895. ²

In 1900 Sickert wrote to Florence Pash Humphrey Holland (1860-1951) asking if she had 'taken care for me' a canvas 'of the pretty art student wife of a curate ... [which] Whistler in a then fit of good humour said I could have.' ³

Images

Subject

Titles

Suggested titles are:

• 'Head of Mr. [sic] Beaumont, friend of Sickert and Whistler' (1924, Christie's). ⁴
• 'Head of Mrs. Beaumont' (1928, Christie's). ⁵
• 'Mrs. Beaumont' (1929, Platt Hall). ⁶
• 'Head of Mrs Beaumont' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

'Head of Mrs Beaumont' is the preferred form of the title.

Description

Head of Mrs Beaumont, Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum

A head and shoulders portrait of a young woman with short dark curly hair, facing the viewer. She is wearing a brown dress with a red collar or scarf, and a brown jacket with narrow off-white reveres. The canvas is in vertical format.

Sitter

Winifred Beaumont (1875-1958), née Winifred Alice Elliot, daughter of Frederick Augustus Hugh Elliot and Constance Alice Impey, was born in Bombay on 24 March 1875. She died on 25 July 1958.

She registered as a full-time student at the Slade School of Art on 24 March 1892 at the age of seventeen. She studied there for three years, and obtained two certificates for figure drawing.

She was married in 1894 and went to live at l0 Westbourne Gardens, London. Her husband, James Arthur Beaumont, M.A., of St John's College, Cambridge, was curate of St Paul's, South Hampstead, 1892-1895, of St Paul's, Paddington, 1895-1899, and of St John's, Wood Road, from 1900. He died in 1920.

Mrs Beaumont later became a dressmaker. She married, secondly, John Godolphin Bennett, a Captain in the Royal Engineers, in May 1925.

Technique

Technique

Head of Mrs Beaumont, Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum

It is painted with broad brush strokes, and fairly thin creamy paint, plus drier brush strokes on the face, all applied very freely. The rich colour and the technique are not entirely like Whistler's usual work, but resemble that of Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), and it is possible that either Whistler was influenced by Sickert or that the latter also worked on it.

Conservation History

Head of Mrs Beaumont, photograph, 1912

Head of Mrs Beaumont, photograph, 1960

Head of Mrs Beaumont, Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum

Unknown. Earlier photographs suggest it has remained in good condition.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• 1894/1895: given by Whistler to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942);
• By 1906: sold to Edgar J. Hesslein (1864-1938);
• 1906: sold in January to Macbeth Galleries, New York;
• 1907: sold on 2 February by Macbeth Gallery and Knoedler, New York art dealers, to John Howard Whittemore (1837-1910), Naugatuck;
• 1912: sold back to Knoedler's (ref. #12670);
• 1924: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 28 July 1924 (lot 79), and bought by Hugh Blaker (1873-1936), London art dealer, for £136.10.0;
• 1928: auctioned at Christie's, London, 6 July 1928 (lot 117) but bought in at 130gns;
• 1936: bequeathed to Blaker's sister, Miss Blaker;
• 1943, May: sold by her to Eardley Knollys (1902-1991), London;
• 1960, October: sold by him to the Piccadilly Gallery, London;
• 1961: bought from Knoedler's, New York, by the Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum on 10 May 1961.

In 1900 Sickert wrote to Florence Pash Humphrey Holland (1860-1951) asking if she had 'taken care for me' of a canvas that 'Whistler in a then fit of good humour said I could have', and later he asked her to sell it. ⁸ The subsequent history is not totally clear. According to the Macbeth stockbooks it was bought from Sickert by E. J. Hesslein, who sold it on 18 January 1907 to the Macbeth Galleries; it was valued at $1800 and immediately sold, possibly through Knoedler's, to J. H. Whittemore on 2 February 1907. ⁹ Whittemore sold it back to Knoedler's in January 1912, and it was apparently still with Knoedler's in London in April 1923 (their a/c #12670). It was auctioned at Christie's on 28 July 1924 (lot 79) and bought by Hugh Blaker, a painter and art dealer, for £136.10.0. Blaker lent it to exhibitions in Rusholme in 1929 (cat. no. 36) and Hereford in 1930 (cat. no. 27) as 'Mrs. Beaumont'.

Exhibitions

• It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

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. 430), plate 266, as 'Head of Mrs Beaumont'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• None.

Books, General

• Smith, Ann Y., Hidden in Plain Sight: The Whittemore Collection and the French Impressionists, Garnet Hill Publishing Co. and Mattatuck Historical Society, 2009, p. 92.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• The Hugh Blaker Collection of Modern paintings and Drawings, Platt Hall, Rusholme 1929 (cat. no. 36).

EXHIBITION:

• Catalogue of the Collection of Modern British Paintings and Drawings lent by Hugh Blaker Esq., City of Hereford Museum and Art Gallery, 1930.
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 62) as 'Head of Mrs Beaumont'.
• Ties That Bind: American Artists in Europe, Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum, Seattle, 2012.
• American Portraits 1880-1915, Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum, Seattle, 2015.

SALE:

• Christie's, London, 28 July 1924 (lot 79) as 'Head of Mrs Beaumont'.
• Christie's, London, 6 July 1928 (lot 117) as 'Head of Mr. [sic] Beaumont, friend of Sickert and Whistler'.

Journals 1906-Present

• 'The Sale Room', Times, London, 29 July 1924, p. 17.

Websites

• Frye Art Museum website at http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/10aa/10aa121.htm and https://fryemuseum.org/exhibition/5961 (acc. 2020).

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• None.