The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Alice Butt (2) dates from the mid- to late 1890s, probably between 1896 and 1898.

Alice Butt (2), National Gallery of Art

It is dated from the technique and butterfly monogram, and relationship to Alice Butt (1) y437. ¹ According to Whistler, he painted 'a little child called "Alice Butt"- charming - quite Italian in type' in Chelsea, but the painting was stolen from his studio in Paris and 'painted upon'. ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Head of a Girl' (1900, A. Reid). ³
• 'Alice Butt - No. 1' (1900, Whistler). ⁴
• 'Alice Butt' (1901, Whistler). ⁵
• 'Head of a Girl' (1908, Metropolitan Museum of Art). ⁶
• 'Kopf eines jungen Madchens' (1910, Königliche Akademie der Künste, Berlin). ⁷
• 'Alice Butt (2)' (1980, YMSM). ⁸

The numbering, 'Alice Butt (2)', serves to distinguish this painting from Alice Butt (1) y437.

Description

Alice Butt (2), National Gallery of Art

A half-length portrait in vertical format, showing a girl with long wavy dark brown hair, facing the viewer. She has a dark brown dress or coat with grey collar, and sits against a warm orangey red background.

Sitter

Alice Caroline Butt (1879-1954). According to Whistler, he painted 'a little child called "Alice Butt" - charming - quite Italian in type' in Chelsea. ⁹ A sketch by the artist's wife. Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896), and presumably done at the same time, catches the child's fragile beauty with sparing outlines (it is now in the Hunterian, University of Glasgow). ¹⁰

Technique

Composition

Alice Butt (2), National Gallery of Art

Alice Butt, private collection

Two portraits of Alice Butt are closely related but it is not possible to tell if one is a study for the other.

Technique

According to Whistler, 'The little head, stolen ... [was] very much repainted - !!!' ¹¹

It is painted on a grey base, the blouse is grey as in Alice Butt (1) y437 and the rest of the picture is in a range of browns, lighter in tone than Alice Butt (1) y437. The background is painted with a broader brush than in Alice Butt (1) y437 (18 mm, 3"), and with long, scrubby strokes. The painting throughout is freer and more fluid, and the model's expression is more sultry than in Alice Butt (1) y437.

Conservation History

Alice Butt (2), photograph, 1900?

Alice Butt (2), photograph,1980

Alice Butt (2), National Gallery of Art

In his letter to Cowan of 2 July 1901, cited above, Whistler identified the sitter as Alice Butt, in the larger of the two portrait heads owned by Cowan (see Alice Butt (1) y437 and Study of a Girl's Head y487). Cowan wrote on 5 July 1901 that he was 'not surprised to hear [this portrait] has been repainted' and mentioned that a 'duplicate of my one' was with Reid in November 1900 (see Alice Butt (1) y437). If there was indeed any over-painting it has apparently been removed.

Frame

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, photograph, GUL Whistler PH6/26

Grau-style frame, made in America, dating from 1903; the photograph above shows it in 1904. ¹² Size framed: 86.4 x 73 x 8.9 cm (34 x 28 3/4 x 3 1/2").

History

Provenance

• 1896 ca: either sold or stolen from Whistler's Paris studio;
• 1896/1900: with Alexander Reid (1854-1928), Glasgow art dealer, Scotland;
• 1900: purchased by John James Cowan (1846-1936), Edinburgh, in April 1900;
• 1901: returned to Whistler on 30 June 1901;
• 1904: probably returned in about April by Whistler's executrix Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) to J. J. Cowan;
• 1904/1906: sold to Alexander Reid (1854-1928), Glasgow;
• 1906: purchased by C. Vose & Sons, Boston, in December 1906;
• 1908: purchased by Hugo Reisinger (1856–1914), New York;
• 1914: bequeathed to his wife, Edmee Busch Reisinger (later Mrs C. E. Greenough) (1871-1955), New York;
• After 1940: passed to her son, Curt H. Reisinger (1891-1964), New York;
• 1948: gift of Curt H. Reisinger to the National Gallery of Art.

According to Whistler, his portrait of Alice Butt was painted in Chelsea, but the painting was stolen from his studio in Paris and 'painted upon' by someone else. ¹³ However, Alexander Reid later said that he had bought the painting directly from Whistler at his studio in rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Paris, about 1896, when it was newly completed, and sold it shortly afterwards to J. J. Cowan. ¹⁴ Cowan stated that he bought it from Reid in April 1900 for £450, and Reid then gave Cowan the impression that the former owner was a friend of Whistler who had bought the portrait from the artist and did not want Whistler to know he had sold it. ¹⁵ This is confirmed by Reid's own records: he recorded the sale of a 'Head of a Girl' to Cowan in April 1900. ¹⁶ When Whistler told him it had been stolen, Cowan returned the portrait to the artist with Study of a Girl's Head y487 on 30 June 1901. ¹⁷

It was in Whistler's studio at his death in 1903, and in accordance with Whistler's expressed wishes, on 19 April 1904, his executrix, Miss R. Birnie Philip, attached a notice to the picture: 'Alice Butt, (Red)'- 'This picture was removed from Mr. Whistler's studio without his knowledge & worked on by some person unknown.' ¹⁸ She probably returned the portrait to J. J. Cowan at that time.

Within two years it was again with Reid. In December 1906 a 'Head of a Girl' was sold by Reid to Vose, Boston dealers, for £550; his son A. McN. Reid thought that 'This was possibly Cowan's picture.'

On 23 July 1907 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) saw a photograph of q portrait of Alice Butt and said he remembered seeing it in Whistler's studio, in exhibitions, and Cowan's possession. ¹⁹

It was sold by Vose to Hugo Reisinger in 1908, and he lent it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1908, and to an exhibition in Berlin in 1910 (cat. no. 93). The painting passed to his wife (later Mrs Busch-Greenough) who lent it to a show in New York in 1940 (cat. no. 299), and to her son, Curt H. Reisinger, New York, who gave it to the National Gallery of Art in 1948. ²⁰

Exhibitions

• It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston 1904, photograph, GUL Whistler PH6/26

The photograph reproduced above shows it in Boston in 1904.

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. 438), plate 279, as 'Alice Butt (2)'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• None.

Books, General

• Williams, William James, A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, New York, 1981, p. 130, repr. 131.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970, p. 122, repr.
• American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980, p. 258, repr.
• American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992, p. 380, repr.
• Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1998, pp. 252-255, repr.

EXHIBITIONS:

• Displayed with the permanent collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1908 as 'Head of a Girl'.
• Ausstellung Amerikanischer Kunst, Royal Academy of Arts, Berlin; Royal Art Society, Munich, 1910 (cat. no. 93) as 'Kopf eines jungen Madchens'.
• Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, 1940 (cat. no. 299) as 'Head of a Girl'.
• Triumph of Realism: An Exhibition of European and American Realist Paintings 1850-1910, Brooklyn Museum; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1967-1968 (cat. no. 88) as 'Head of a Girl'.
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978, unnumbered, as 'Head of a Girl'.
• Two Hundred Years of American Paintings, 1700-1900, Inaugural Exhibition, The Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Georgia, 1981 (cat. no. 48) as 'Head of a Girl'.
• Extended loan for use by Ambassador Arthur Hartmann, US Embassy residence, Moscow, USSR., 1982-1987.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Beatrice Whistler: Artist & Designer, Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, 1997, p. 32 (cat. 64, drawing by B. Whistler).
• Extended loan for use by Ambassador Walter Curley, US Embassy residence, Paris, France, 1989-1993.
• Extended loan for use by Secretary Robert E. Rubin, US Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, 1996-1999.
• Extended loan for use by Secretary Henry M. Paulson, US Department of Treasury, Washington, DC, 2006.
• Extended loan for use by Vice President Joseph Biden, Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C., 2009-2015.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• National Gallery of Art website at http://www.nga.gov.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 277a).

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.