The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap probably dates from 1901. ¹

Lilian ('Lily') Pamington (b. 1887/1888) was posing for Whistler for various painting between 1899 and 1901. It was probably in 1901 that Whistler sent her to his dentist, saying, 'I depend upon this pretty child - little Lillie Pamington - "The Golden Lillie" - for the making of my pictures' and begging him to stop her pain 'at once by your magic.' ²

This portrait was first exhibited in that year, at the 3rd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Galleries of the Royal Institute, London, 1901 (cat. no. 35) as 'The Golden Lily'.

Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap, Freer Gallery of Art

In June 1902 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) of Detroit noted buying ' "The Little Green Cap" ' but leaving it in Whistler's studio for further work. ³

Images

Subject

Titles

There are considerable variations in the titles that have been suggested:

• 'The Golden Lillie' ([1901], Whistler). ⁴
• 'The Golden Lily' (1901, ISSPG). ⁵
• 'The Little Green Cap' (1902, C. L. Freer). ⁶
• 'The Green Cap' (1905, The Inaugural Loan Collection of Paintings, Buffalo). ⁷
• ' "Green & Gold: The Little Green Cap", a portrait of Lillie Pamington' (1907, R. Birnie Philip). ⁸
• 'Little Green Cap' (1909, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy). ⁹
• 'Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap' (1980, YMSM). ¹⁰
• 'The Golden Lily (Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap)' (2020, Whistler Painting Project).

The Golden Lily (Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap)' is the revised title, based on Whistler's original title as published in 1901, with the title given to it by the purchaser in 1902.

Description

Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap, Freer Gallery of Art

A half-length portrait of a girl in vertical format. She is in three-quarter view to right, her head slightly tilted to left (her right), but looking at the viewer. She has dark red hair, shoulder-length, cut in a deep fringe. Her dress is black.

In 1901 the sitter was described in newspapers as 'wan', 'a young girl, red-haired and vivacious', 'strong in character', and having 'red-gold hair.' ¹¹

Sitter

One of several portraits of Lilian ('Lily') Pamington (b. 1887/1888), including, for instance, Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!' y464, and Grenat et or: Le Petit Cardinal y469.

In 1901 Whistler mentioned her as 'The Golden Lillie' and asked his dentist to cure her:

'I depend upon this pretty child - little Lillie Pamington - "The Golden Lillie" - for the making of my pictures - and I send her to you in great suffering not only that her pain may be stopped at once by your magic! but especially that her mouth may not be put out of drawing & ruined for me by some "Native" to whom she would otherwise run in her agony!' ¹²

It was suggested in 1980 that 'The Golden Lily' might have been the boy in Brun et or: De race y511, but this is incorrect. ¹³

Technique

Composition

Judging by the admittedly not very clear image in the Illustrated London News in 1901, the portrait was changed slightly after its first exhibition. ¹⁴ The girl's fringe was made a little thicker and more even, her face was narrowed, the chin being more pointed, and her collar was darkened.

Technique

Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap, Freer Gallery of Art

It is thinly and evenly painted, with bolder brushstrokes on the hair. The face has been rubbed down and thinly reworked by the artist, leaving some areas almost bare. The canvas is showing, for instance, around her eyes, particularly at right. What may be her hand at lower right has been rubbed-down and blurred.

Conservation History

According to Freer Gallery of Art curatorial files it was lightly cleaned in 1921, relined in 1922, surfaced in 1933, cleaned and surfaced in 1935 and 1951. In 1965 it was cleaned by Ben Johnson and the discoloured varnish was probably removed before it was re-stretched onto a new stretcher, revarnished, and received some minimal inpainting and a final coat of varnish.

Frame

Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap, Freer Gallery of Art

Grau-style, American, frame dating from 1903. ¹⁵

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1907: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

In June 1902 Freer noted buying 'The Little Green Cap' but leaving it in Whistler's studio for further work; presumably he did not pay for it at that time. ¹⁶

Miss R. Birnie Philip sold ' "Green & Gold: The Little Green Cap", a portrait of Lillie Pamington', to Freer on 8 October 1907 for £1000, of which £400 was retained by Freer for the Whistler memorial at West Point. ¹⁷

Exhibitions

• 1901: 3rd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Galleries of the Royal Institute, London, 1901 (cat. no. 35) as ‘The Golden Lily’.

Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap, Freer Gallery of Art

A long and somewhat convoluted review by Percy Moore Turner (1877-1950) praised the work:

'[T]he exquisite portrait which he styles "The Golden Lily"... contains all the elements of a really great work, one which arrests and raises itself into rank with the finest examples of modern portrait art. This is done not by any bold and sudden onslaught of colour or trickery of the brush, but by the possession of those subtle qualities, many of them indiscernible until a prolonged contemplation of the work is attempted, which inevitably appeal with a force that cannot be denied. Yet the colour scheme is low in tone and the picture does not take one's breath away, as is the case with many a portrait we remember which has afterwards faded gradually from memory.' ¹⁸

The art critic of the Spectator commented on 12 October 1901: 'There is no lack of character in Mr. Whistler’s strangely interesting study of a girl’s face, The Golden Lily. The perfect simplicity of the result hides the subtlety of the work.' ¹⁹ Other art critics described it as 'the study of a pallid, red-haired girl' and commended its 'charm of design and movement, ' and described the sitter as being 'as strong in character as in colour.' ²⁰ Such views were not universal: the Morning Post published a letter asserting that 'The personality of the child represented in "The Golden Lily" is not particularly pleasing" but that the sketch did give a sense of 'the artist’s executive facility.' ²¹

Some critics commented on the dark background, one complaining of the 'unrelieved and unexplained gloom' of the picture. ²² However, Dugald Sutherland MacColl (1859-1948) admired Whistler’s portrait, because although ‘low in tone’, the ‘head shines out against its background.' ²³

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.

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. 467), plate 300, as 'Green and Gold: The Little Green Cap'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• The Inaugural Loan Collection of Paintings, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, 1905 (cat. no. 169) as 'The Green Cap'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., Southern Echo, Hampshire, 5 October 1901, p. 2 (syndicated).
• Anon., Chronicle, London, 5 October 1901.
• 'To the Editor of the Morning Post', Morning Post, London, 7 October 1901, p. 6.
• Anon., 'Art and Artists', Star, London, 8 October 1901.
• Anon., 'Sculptors, Painters and Gravers', Daily Telegraph, London, 9 October 1901.
• Anon., Truth, London, 10 October 1901, p. 43.
• Anon., 'The International Society', Daily News, London, 12 October 1901, p. 6.
• Anon., 'The International', Hearth and Home, London, 17 October 1901.
• Anon., 'Pictures are reproduced by Permission of the Artists, and are Copyright', Illustrated London News, London, 26 October 1901, p. 2, repr. p. 40.

Journals 1855-1905

• Turner, Percy Moore, 'The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, 3rd Exhibition', The Art Record, 1901, pp. 545-568, at pp. 545-46.
• Anon., 'Art', Spectator, London, 12 October 1901, p. 16.
• MacColl, Dugald S., 'The "International"', Saturday Review, London, 92, 26 0ctober 1901, pp. 522-23 at 522.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Lane, James W., Whistler, (American Artists Series), New York, 1942, repr. p. 64.
• Merrill, Linda, With Kindest Regards. The Correspondence of Charles Lang Freer and James McNeill Whistler, 1890-1903, Washington, DC, and London, 1995, p. 165, fig. 42.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, pl. 111.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. I5 (07.169).
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 150, 295, pl. 58.

EXHIBITION:

• 4th Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, 1909 (cat. no. 186) as 'Little Green Cap'.
• Paintings in oil and pastel by James McNeill Whistler, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1910 (cat. no. 43).
• Inaugural Exhibition, Toledo Museum of Art, 1912 (cat. no. 104).
• Selection of Art Objects from The Freer Collection, National Museum, Washington, DC, 1912 (cat. no. 13).
• Exhibited to the University of Michigan Club in the house of C. L. Freer, Detroit, 1914 (cat. no. 13).
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, p. 247, note 61.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1907.169a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 291).

Other

• None.