The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve dates from 1902 or early 1903. ¹

There are several slightly conflicting stories about it: originally the Pennells recorded that it was painted in 1902:

'[Whistler] had an Irish model, Miss Dorothy Seton, whose red hair was remarkably beautiful ... One afternoon J.[Joseph Pennell] found him painting the picture of her, with her red hair hanging over her shoulders and an apple in her hand, to which the title Daughter of Eve was eventually given. He was walking up and down the studio in high spirits' and told Pennell "It was done in a couple of hours this very morning".' ²

Some years later, the Pennells recorded that Whistler painted ‘Miss Seton with the apple’ in 1 3/4 hours one afternoon in May 1903. ³ Either date is possible, and indeed, since Whistler often re-worked portraits, both dates may apply to the same painting.

Dorothy Seton was Irish, and so a reference by Whistler to an unfinished picture as 'The Irish Girl', on 1 February 1903 may refer to Dorothy Seton - A Daughter of Eve. On that date Whistler wrote to Hannah, Mrs E. K. Johnson (1851-1935) of 12 Ladbroke Grove, Holland Park Avenue, London, that John Balli (1849-1914), of 50 Holland Park, regarding a possible sale:

'The Irish Girl & The Neighbours are the two that would be at his disposal if he likes -

When "The Irish Girl" is finished I will let you know & you can bring Mr Balli to the Studio again that he see it.' ⁴

Balli bought Gold and Orange: The Neighbours y423 at this time for 400 guineas: it is a small panel, and this might suggest that the 'Irish Girl' was another small oil, such as Head of a Child y539, rather than the portrait of Dorothy Seton.

Images

Subject

Titles

Variations on the title have been suggested:

• 'Dorothy Seton. A Daughter of Eve' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). ⁵
• 'Daughter of Eve' (1908, Pennell). ⁶
• 'A Daughter of Eve' (1915, Colnaghi). ⁷
• 'Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve' (1935, University of Glasgow). ⁸
• 'Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve' (1980, YMSM). ⁹

'Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve' is the preferred title.

Description

Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve, The Hunterian

A half-length portrait of a young woman with shoulder length reddish-brown hair. She is slightly turned to right. She wears a black dress and has a black ribbon in her hair. She holds an apple up to her breast, in her right hand. The background is a dark green.

Sitter

Dorothy Seton (fl. 1885-1900). She may have been the 'Dora. Seton' recorded in the 1901 UK census as an artist and sculptor, aged 22, born in Dublin, and living at 59 Park Road, Battersea.

Other portraits of her include Dorothy Seton y551 and Head of a Girl y554, and two lithographs, Portrait of a Young Woman [Miss Seton] c171 and Portrait of a Young Woman Wearing a Hat [Miss Seton] c172.

Comments

According to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, Eve, the first woman, was created by God from one of Adam's ribs to be Adam's companion. A serpent tricked Eve into eating fruit from a forbidden tree – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – and she gave some of the fruit to Adam. God cursed the serpent and banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve, The Hunterian

Eve, The Hunterian

The retort, The Hunterian

Eve as temptress, holding an apple, was a subject explored by Whistler in several drawings, including Adam and Eve m1697 and Eve m1698, and, in The Retort m1700, a suggestion for an advertisement for soap!

Technique

Technique

Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve, The Hunterian

Either this painting or Dorothy Seton y551 may have been the work described by Way and Dennis in 1903:

'In his early portraits he required an enormous number of sittings from his models; yet a short time before his death he painted in two sittings a study of a girl's head, which in mastery of handling is equal to anything he ever produced.' ¹⁰

The face and hand of the girl are painted thinly, with almost dry paint, on what appears to be a grey primed canvas. The brushwork is rather tentative, but her skin is solidly modelled and of a rich colour. The bold handling of the black dress, and of the black ribbon in her dark red hair, against an olive green background, confirm that the painting was done quickly. The black outline appears to have been strengthened round her face and hands. It is more precise than is usual in Whistler’s work but accentuates fully the glowing flesh tones and the russet of the apple.

Conservation History

The Pennells thought it was ‘the last important picture he painted ... an extremely fine example of his latest period. He must have worked on it again, however, for at the Paris Memorial Exhibition, the bloom of its first beauty had faded from it.’ ¹¹

Frame

Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve, The Hunterian

Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve, frame detail

A Grau-style frame, dating from the 1900s. ¹²

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler’s studio at his death and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1935: given by Miss Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 40) as ‘Dorothy Seton. A Daughter of Eve’.

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime. It was, however, lent to an exhibition by Miss Birnie Philip in 1915, when a newspaper commented:

' "A Daughter of Eve" is indeed one of the very best paintings done ... in a couple of morning hours from the red-haired Irish model in whom he found a likeness to Hogarth's "Shrimp Girl." Whether as the result of later, less inspired retouching, the painting has, however, nothing of the gaiety and freshness one looks for.' ¹³

By the terms of Miss Birnie Philip's gift to the University of Glasgow, it is not lendable.

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. 552), plate 355, as 'Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 40) as ‘Dorothy Seton. A Daughter of Eve’.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Anderson, Ronald, and Ann Koval, James McNeill Whistler: Beyond the Myth, London, 1994, p. 455.
• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907, p. 190 (cat. no. 202).
• Fleming, G. H., James Abbott McNeill Whistler. A Life, The Windrush Press, Gloucestershire, 1991, pp. 323-24.
• McMullen, Roy, Victorian Outsider: a Biography of J. A. M. Whistler, London, 1974, pp. 267-68.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, p. 291.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, pp. 286-87.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 169 (cat. no. 135).
• Sutherland, Daniel E., Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake, New Haven and London, 2014, p. 332.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 135.
• Walker, John, James McNeill Whistler, New York, 1987, pp. 135-36, 145-46, repr.
• Young, Andrew McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Milan, 1963, repr. pl. 16.

Books, General

• Schulz, Max, Paradise revisited. Recreations of Eden in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 294.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Loan Exhibition of Works by James McNeill Whistler to aid the Professional Classes War Relief Council, Messrs Colnaghi, London, 1915 (cat. no. 24) as 'A Daughter of Eve'.
• James McNeill Whistler, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 1936 (cat. no. 31) as 'Dorothy Seton – A Daughter of Eve'.

Journals 1906-Present

• Ashbee, Felicity, 'Dandy in Decline: Whistler's last home', Country Life, vol. 176, 1984, pp. 1560-61, at p. 1561.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• Anon., 'Unexpected Whistlers', The Glasgow Herald, Glasgow, 1 June 1915.
• Anon., 'Art and Artists', The Observer, London, 6 June 1915.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/41090.
• ArtUK website at https://artuk.org.
• Europeana website at https://www.europeana.eu.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 242).

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.