The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Little Faustina dates from between 1896 and 1900. ¹ According to Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920), 'Some years ago [Whistler] showed a visitor several heads of Italian children, each about ten or twelve, by sixteen or eighteen inches in size'; Whistler priced the portraits at 600 guineas each and the visitor wanted to buy the lot (four in number) but Whistler would not let them go, on the pretence that they were unfinished. ²

The Little Faustina, Freer Gallery of Art

In 1903 another American collector, Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), recorded seeing in Whistler's studio "'Comment tu t'appelle"/ The marvellous little girl, full face, eyes looking into futurity - Her two little hands folded and resting in her lap.' ³

Images

Subject

Titles

Two titles have been suggested:

• 'Comment tu t'appelle' (1903, C. L. Freer). ⁴
• 'The Little Faustina' (1903 and 1909, R. B. Philip). ⁵
• 'The Little Faustina' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). ⁶
• 'The Little Faustina' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

The 1905 title, 'The Little Faustina', is generally accepted.

Description

The Little Faustina, Freer Gallery of Art

A half-length portrait of a girl in vertical format. She is facing the viewer, with her hands clasped in her lap. She has brown eyes, a fresh pink complexion, and dark brown hair with a central parting. She wears a plain black dress with a round neck and poses in front of a dark background.

Sitter

She was Italian, according to Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920), who wrote, 'Some years ago [Whistler] showed a visitor several heads of Italian children, each about ten or twelve, by sixteen or eighteen inches in size. With them was a three-quarter length of one of the children'. ⁸

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) recorded seeing Vert et or: Le Raconteur y513 in Whistler's studio in 1903, and identified the model as the 'Brother of the boy with a cloak' (The Boy in a Cloak y512) and of The Little Faustina y510). His record of the portraits presumably reflects information given by the artist, and is as follows:

"Le Raconteur" / The boy with mischievous face - hand and thumb / Brother of the boy with cloak

"Comment tu t'appelle"/ The marvellous little girl full face - eyes looking into futurity - her two little hands folded and at rest in her lap -/ Sister of the boy in cloak and of the Raconteur

Asked to be held for C L F

Mr George Vanderbilt to have the little boy with fine eyes . brother ... of the Raconteur - And the same boy painted in the "Boy in the cloak".' ⁹

Freer bought the 'Raconteur' in 1905 and The Little Faustina y510 in 1909, but George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914) did not buy one of these family portraits.

Curry thought that the title might be 'a somewhat melodramatic reference to the child's future potential as a temptress', since Faustina, wife of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, 'was supposedly licentious.' ¹⁰ Whistler could well have known the poem 'Faustine' by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), that was inspired by images and stories about the empress, and was published in The Spectator on 31 May 1862. It gave a fairly extreme image of a decadent and dangerous woman ('You have the face that suits a woman / For her soul's screen — / The sort of beauty that's called human / In hell, Faustine.')

It is also possible that Whistler made the connection to his earlier enthusiasm for the burlesque Little Dr Faust at the Gaiety Theatre, where he had made many sketches in the late 1870s (see Harmony in Blue: The Duet y196).

However, Faustina was also the name of a saint and a popular name for girls, since it derives from the Latin 'faustus' meaning fortunate.

Technique

Technique

The Little Faustina, Freer Gallery of Art

A label on the stretcher written by Whistler's sister-in-law Miss R. Birnie Philip's reads 'Inachevé' (unfinished). However, there is no specific suggestion that Brun et or: De race y511, The Boy in a Cloak y512 and Vert et or: Le Raconteur y513 were considered incomplete by Whistler. A. J. Eddy considered them 'superb bits of portraiture', which 'had just been finished.' ¹¹

It is, however, rather dark, thinly painted, and rubbed as part of the painting process, particularly around her mouth.

Conservation History

It was relined in 1922, resurfaced in 1933, 'cleaned and surfaced' in 1951. ¹²

Frame

The Little Faustina, Freer Gallery of Art

A Grau-style frame, dating from the 1890s. ¹³

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1909: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

It was sold by Miss R. Birnie Philip to C. L. Freer on 12 July 1909, for £1250. ¹⁴

Exhibitions

• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 43) as 'The Little Faustina'.

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

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. 510), plate 325, as 'The Little Faustina'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 43) as 'The Little Faustina'.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907, p. 35 (cat. no. 43).
• Eddy, Arthur Jerome, Recollections and Impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler, Philadelphia and London, 1903, pp. 273-74.

Books, General

• Kelly, Franklin, American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, vol. 2, 1998, p. 255.
• Kelley, William Valentine, With the Children in Lewis Carroll's Company, New York and London, 1917, p. 43.
• Sweeney, J. Gray, American Painting, Muskegon Museum of Art, 1980, p. 22.

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. 15 (09.113).
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 149, 295, 307, pl. 57.

EXHIBITION:

• Paintings in oil and pastel by James McNeill Whistler, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1910 (cat. no. 44).
• Inaugural Exhibition, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, 1912 (cat. no. 105).

Journals 1906-Present

• Meyer, Annie Nathan, 'Whistler Exhibition', Harper's Weekly, vol. 54, part 1, 1909, p. 18.
• Kurtz, Charles M., Cornelia Bentley Sage Quinton, and William Mathews Hekking, 'The Whistler Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art', Academy Notes, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, vol. 5-10, 1910, p. 1.
• Kathleen Pyne, 'Whistler and the Politics of the Urban Picturesque', American Art, vol. 8, no. 3/4, Summer - Autumn, 1994, pp. 60-77, at pp. 74-75 (fig. 17; the titles given to figs. 16 and 17 are reversed, with fig. 17 incorrectly named 'The Little Red Glove').

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1909.113a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 293).

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.