The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 541
The Little Lady Edith of Eden
Date
The Little Lady Edith of Eden may have been started early in 1898. 1 It was probably then that Whistler asked Edith Burkitt (1884-1973) (later Mrs Shaw), one of the daughters of his landlady at 8 Fitzroy Street, to pose for him with ‘an old fashioned sun-bonnet on my head’, but she was taken ill and her older sister posed instead. 2
Rose and Gold: The Little Lady Sophie of Soho, Freer Gallery of Art
According to Edith Burkitt (Mrs Shaw), when her sister’s portrait, Rose and Gold: The Little Lady Sophie of Soho y504, was completed, probably in May 1899, he started to paint Edith again: ‘I was about 10 yrs old - my sister would have been about 13 yrs of age.' 3 However, Edith was older than this: she would have been fifteen or sixteen when she posed. The portrait was probably painted about September or November 1900 and completed before Whistler went to Corsica at the end of 1900.
Images
The Little Lady Edith of Eden, Whereabouts Unknown
Rose and Gold: The Little Lady Sophie of Soho, Freer Gallery of Art
Subject
Titles
Only one title has been recorded:
- 'The Little Lady Edith 0f Eden’ (1968, Mrs E. Shaw). 4
- 'The Little Lady Edith of Eden' (1980, YMSM). 5
Description
The sitter described the portrait:
'My dress at the time Mr. Whistler was painting my portrait was bright navy blue with a cerise yoke, which he and I disliked. He may have used an artist's prerogative and changed the colour scheme. My hair was a warm brown with highlights of red and gold.
He told me he was calling it "The Little Lady Edith" of Eden, and "Burning Gold." that was his description of my hair.' 6
In another letter she added: 'I was wearing a blue dress with a cerise yoke pleats & a black ribbon bow on my hair at the back.' 7 She wrote in her memoir of Whistler: 'He liked my hair, which he always spoke of as "burning gold", and my pink cheeks'; she also wrote of the black satin ribbon as being 'round my head to contrast with my red-gold hair.' 8
Sitter
Edith Burkitt (1884-1973). The daughter of Emma and James Burkitt, she married Walter Way Shaw (1882-1957). Her memoirs of Whistler were edited and published in 1968. 9 She died in North Carolina on 3 March 1973.
Technique
Technique
Unknown.
Conservation History
Unknown.
Frame
Unknown.
History
Provenance
- Unknown.
Exhibitions
It was not, as far as is known, 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. 541) as 'The Little Lady Edith of Eden'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- None.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
Monographs
- None.
Books on Whistler
- None.
Books, General
- None.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- None.
Journals 1906-Present
- Shaw, Edith, and Margaret F. MacInnes [M. F. MacDonald], ‘Four Years with Whistler’, Apollo, vol. 87, March 1968, pp. 198-201.
Websites
- None.
Unpublished
- None.
Other
- None.
Notes:
1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 541).
2: Shaw & MacInnes1968 [more].
3: Letter from Mrs Shaw, April 1966, GUL WPP file. Shaw 1968, op. cit.
4: Shaw & MacInnes1968 [more].
5: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 541).
6: Edith C. Shaw, Cincinnati, Ohio, to A. McL. Young, 22 September 1967, GUL WPP file.
7: Letter from Mrs Edith C. Shaw, April 1966, GUL WPP file.
8: Shaw 1968, op. cit.
9: Shaw 1968, op. cit.