The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé dates from 20 October 1897. ¹

Mallarmé and family at Valvins, photograph, GUL Whistler PH1/161

The portrait of Mallarmé's daughter was painted at their home at Valvins (S. et M.) on 20 October 1897, and given by the artist to the sitter. ²

Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé, Private collection

On his return to Paris Whistler had it framed, and wrote to Mallarmé on 23 October 1897:

'Il est déjà dans son cadre le petit tableau de la princesse en son boudoir Rose et gris -

Tout le monde en est enchanté ...

Ma visite restera pour moi un souvenir dont la douce influence ne saura que m'encourager dans ma vie que vous connaissez si triste au fond! ...

Présentez mes homages à ces dames, avec mes meilleurs remerciements pour toutes leurs gentilles bontés ...

En regardant encore, je crois qu'Elle l'aurait aimé, le petit portrait! - et je sais qu'en songeant à moi, vous pensez à nous deux!' ³

Translation: 'The little painting of the princess in her Pink and grey boudoir is already framed -

Everyone is enchanted by it ...

My visit will remain for me a memory of which the sweet influence can only encourage me in my life that you know to be so sad at heart! ...

Give my regards to the ladies, with my many thanks for all their lovely kind-heartedness ...

Looking at it again, I think that She would have liked the little portrait! - and I know that in thinking of me, you think of us both!'

'She' was the artist's wife Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896), who had died in 1896, at which time he was comforted by friends including Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), the poet, and his family.

Images

Subject

Titles

The suggested titles are as follows:

• 'le petit tableau de la princesse en son boudoir Rose et gris' (1897, Whistler). ⁴
• 'Mademoiselle Geneviève Mallarmé' (1960, Arts Council). ⁵
• 'Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé' (1980, YMSM). ⁶

The preferred title, 'Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé', is based on Whistler's description of the subject in 1897, cited above.

Description

Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé, private collection

A small portrait in upright format of a young woman seated. She wears a pale pink and grey dress with puff sleeves, and a satin ribbon around her tiny waist. She sits on a white-painted wooden chair, leaning on the arms. A fireplace is just visible at right.

Sitter

Stéphane (on left) and Geneviève Mallarmé (on right), photograph, GUL Whistler PH1/161

Geneviève Mallarmé (Mme Edmond P. C. Bonniot) (1864-1919) (1864-1919), was the only daughter of Whistler's friend, the poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) and his wife Maria-Christina Mallarmé née Gerhard (1835-1910).

Louise Bonniot (m. 1921), second wife of the sitter's widower, who inherited the portrait, described Whistler as 'ce grand peintre que Stéphane Mallarmé aimait et admirait profondiment.' ⁷

Technique

Technique

Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé, Private collection

The panel was prepared with pale grey under-paint, and the figure sketched in pencil. It is very thinly painted, with free, expressive brush-strokes, leaving much of the under-paint visible. The face was delicately touched in with a small brush.

Conservation History

Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé, photograph

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• 1897: given by Whistler to the sitter, Geneviève Mallarmé (Mme Edmond P. C. Bonniot) (1864-1919);
• 1919: passed by family succession to Mme Louise Bonniot (m. 1921), second wife of the sitter's widower, Maison Mallarmé, Vulaines-sur-Seine;
• 1970: bequeathed to her niece, Mme Jean Paysant (dates unknown);
• 2015: passed to a private collection.
• 2019: bequeathed to the Musée Stéphane Mallarmé, Vulaines-sur-Seine.

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. 485), plate 313, as 'Rose et gris: Geneviève Mallarmé'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Barbier, Carl P., (ed.), Correspondance Mallarmé-Whistler: Histoire de la grande amitié de leurs dernières années, Paris, 1964, pp. 263-66, 279, repr. f.p. 264.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 44.

Books, General

• Fontainas, Adrienne, De Stéphane Mallarmé à Paul Valéry: notes d'un témoin, 1894-1922, 1928, p. 1899.
• Stanislas, Marie-Thérèse, Geneviève Mallarmé-Bonniot, Nizet, 2006.
• Steinmetz, Jean-Luc, Stéphane Mallarmé: L'absolu au jour le jour, Paris, 1998.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 71) as 'Mademoiselle Geneviève Mallarmé'.
• Whistler and Mallarmé, Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, 1973 (cat. no. 105).
• Proust et les peintres, Musée des beaux-arts de Chartres, Chartres, 1991.
• Dorment, Richard, and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1994-1995 (cat. no. 187)
• Mallarmé et les femmes, Maison Mallarmé, Vulaines sur Seine, 2011 (no catalogue number), Online at http://www.musee-mallarme.fr.
• Lochnan, Katharine, Turner, Whistler, Monet, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Tate Britain, London, 2004-2005, p. 241.

Journals 1906-Present

• James McNeill Whistler in context : essays from the Whistler Centenary Symposium, University of Glasgow, 2003.

Websites

• Musée Mallarmé website at https://www.musee-mallarme.fr/fr/le-musee-aujourd-hui.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 481).

Other

• None.