The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Widow probably dates from between 1895 and 1900. ¹

The Widow, private collection

The brushwork on the face has the sort of finish seen in Whistler's portraits from 1895-1900, such as The Little Rose of Lyme Regis y449 and Rose and Gold: The Little Lady Sophie of Soho y504. The oval format and dark green background are common to a number of Whistler's late portraits, such as A Paris Model y458 and Girl in Black y470. The butterfly is of a type used in the late 1890s.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'The Widow' (1905, ISSPG). ²
• 'Portrait of a Lady' (1909, Worcester Art Museum). ³
• 'The Widow' (1952, Parke-Bernet). ⁴
• 'The Widow' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

It has been decided to stick with the 1905 title, 'The Widow', to avoid confusion.

Description

The Widow, private collection

A half-length portrait of a woman, in oval format. She has dark curly hair, and looks directly at the viewer. She is turned very slightly to her left, and is lit from the left. She wears a dark jacket with a stand-up collar lined with white.

Sitter

The Widow, private collection

The sitter has not been identified. It is not known if she was really a widow, but she is wearing black.

Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975) suggested it was a portrait of Whistler's wife Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896), painted shortly after the death of her first husband, the architect Edward William Godwin (1833-1886). ⁶ The Glasgow University Library possesses a photograph of Beatrice, and there are several lithographs of her including Beatrix Whistler c080. The features and short curly hair in this oil portrait are not sufficient to confirm this identification.

Harmony in Red: Lamplight, The Hunterian

It looks very different from Whistler's earlier portrait of Beatrice, started during Godwin's lifetime, Harmony in Red: Lamplight y253.

A date of 1895/1900, suggested by the technique and butterfly, does not entirely preclude the identification of the sitter as Beatrice Whistler (who died in 1896) but makes it less likely. In 1895-1896 she was very ill indeed – which would not fit the warm and alert expression of the sitter in this portrait – and she was no longer a widow. Finally it would seem most unlikely that Whistler would have parted with a portrait of his wife after her death.

Magda Heinemann, photograph, Bookman, 1899

Another, rather faint possibility is, that it is a portrait of Magda Stuart Sindici (Mrs W. Heinemann) (b. 1878, m. 1899), who posed for an oval portrait in 1900. This portrait was left incomplete after her divorce from William Heinemann (1863-1920), and has not been located.

Comments

Henniker-Heaton commented, in the Worcester catalogue of 1922:

'The chief merit is in the quality of the painting. There is no psychological penetration in the artist's attitude, no message of great volume. The very title may imply a sentimental attitude on the part of the painter. But, if there is any such attitude, it is subconscious, and the figure is but an object for the use of a sensitive brush. Any sentiment the subject may have inspired expresses itself more in the quality of brush-work than in any intentional infusion of literary interest.' ⁷

Technique

Technique

The Widow, private collection

It was painted with fairly thin paint on a coarse canvas. The liquid brushwork on the beautiful face is comparable to that seen in works after 1895, and around the turn of the century, such as Rose and Gold: The Little Lady Sophie of Soho y504. The unfinished, scrubbed-in white paint of the collar is closer to late works. The oval format and dark green background are common to a number of Whistler's portraits between 1896 and 1902 (see A Paris Model y458).

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• Before 1904: James Staats Forbes (1823-1904), London;
• 1904: placed by his executors on deposit at Obach, London dealers.
• 1907: bought from Brown & Phillips or the Leicester Galleries, London dealers, by the Macbeth Galleries, New York;
• 1909: bought from Macbeth by Worcester Art Museum, MA;
• 1925: sold by Worcester Art Museum to John Levy Galleries, New York;
• 1934: passed to J. J. Gillespie Galleries, Pittsburgh, who sold it to Richard V. Nuttall (ca 1891-d.1956) and his wife, Martha Nuttall (Mrs R. V. Nuttall (b. ca 1892), Pittsburgh;
• 1952: sold by them at auction, Parke-Bernet, New York, 21 May 1952 (lot 38) as 'The Widow', and bought by Dr William S. Serri (1911-1995?), Swedesboro, New Jersey;
• 1979: sold by him to Dr John Larkin (n/a), White Bear Lake, Minnesota;
• Date unknown: sold through New York art dealers and the Fine Art Society, London, to a private collector.

In June 1904 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) of Detroit saw a 'Womans Head – oval' from the collection of James Staats Forbes, which was probably this painting, with Obach & Co., but left no offer for it. ⁸ It was lent by Forbes' executors to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905. It was bought either from Brown & Phillips or the Leicester Galleries (Parke-Bernet thought the latter) by the Macbeth Galleries on 21 June 1907. After long consideration it was bought by the Worcester Art Museum on 2 January 1909. ⁹ The Museum sold it in part exchange to the John Levy Galleries in 1925. It was then passed to J. J. Gillespie Galleries, Pittsburgh, who sold it to Mr and Mrs Richard V. Nuttall in January 1934. It was bought from Parke-Bernet, 21 May 1952 (lot 38), by Dr William S. Serri for $1350 and sold by him to Dr John Larkin in 1979.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 1) as 'The Widow'.

The Pall Mall Gazette, comparing two of the paintings from the collection of the late Staats Forbes, 'The Widow' and The Girl in Red y312, considered 'The Widow', 'the least secure'. ¹⁰

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. 459), plate 282, as 'The Widow'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 1) as 'The Widow'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., ['A. M.'], 'The Whistler Exhibition', Pall Mall Gazette, London, 22 February 1905, p. 4.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Henniker-Heaton, Raymond, Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, 1922, p. 145, repr.

EXHIBITION:

• [Exhibition], Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, 1909 (cat. no. 32) as 'Portrait of a Lady'.
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (checklist, cat. no. 95).

SALES:

• Parke-Bernet, New York, 21 May 1952 (lot 38) 'The Widow'.

Journals 1906-Present

• Mullikin, Mary Augusta, 'Reminiscences of the Whistler Academy by an American Student', The Studio, vol. 34, April 1905, pp. 237-41; reprinted in The International Studio, vol. 25, May 1905, pp. 237-41, repr. p. 239.

Websites

• None.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 230).

Other

• None.