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Portrait of young woman in white gown

A light-skinned young woman stands facing the viewer. She has thick brown hair, dark eyes, rosy cheeks, and pink lips. She wears a floor-length white gown with sheer sleeves and a high, frilly gray-and-peach collar. The collar is circled with black lace. Black and peach lace form a blossom shape on the side of the woman’s waist, and peach material drapes over her leg. She holds an open dark gray fan. More fans are in the background to the right, and blossoms peek into the frame from the left side. The rug beneath her is decorated with light gray lines and checks.

Gallery Text

This work is believed to depict Whistler’s model and companion, Maud Franklin. The subject’s hands are unfinished, and the application of paint is uncharacteristically uneven for one of the artist’s experimental "harmonies": the category Whistler designated for paintings in which the formal elements of color, shape, and decorative patterning are as important as the delineation of the figure.

Nonetheless, the composition serves as a noteworthy representation of the artist’s techniques and engagement with Japanese aesthetics—evident in the geometric patterning of the foreshortened foreground and the inclusion of such motifs as fans and blossoms.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.165
People
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
Title
Harmony in Grey and Peach Colour
Other Titles
Former Title: The White Girl, No. IV
Former Title: The White Woman
Former Title: The White Girl
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1872-1874
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/230025

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2100, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Centuries of Tradition, Changing Times: Art for an Uncertain Age
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
193 x 101 cm (76 x 39 3/4 in.)
framed: 219.7 x 127 x 8.9 cm (86 1/2 x 50 x 3 1/2 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: c.l. Butterfly monogram
  • label: WITH CARE / "A White Lady" by J. M. Whistler / Belonging to the Misses Way / 21 Brunswick Sqr. / D.C.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Thomas Way, Sr., 1879, London [purchased through dealer], sold [through Sotheby's, July 25, 1916, lot 77]; to [Agnew, London], sold; to [C.W. Kraushaar Galleries, New York, 1916], sold; to Mrs. Benjamin Thaw. Mrs. C. Lewis Hind, London, sold; to John F. Braun. [Ferargil Galleries, New York, 1939], sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, 1939, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.165
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

  • William M. Rossetti, [Unidentified article], The Builder (July 9, 1874)
  • Thomas R. Way, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, George Bell and Sons, Ltd. (London, England, 1903), pp. 26-27, pastel study reproduction facing page 26
  • Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, J. B. Lippincott/W. Heinemann (Philadelphia, PA and London, England, 1908), vol. I, p. 258
  • World of Fair Women, exh. cat., International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers (London, England, 1910), no. 43
  • Thomas R. Way, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, John Lane Co. (New York, 1912), reproduced before p. 139
  • [Unidentified article], Fine Arts Journal (Chicago, IL, 1917), pp. 137-39, pp. 137-139, reproduced facing p. 134
  • Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, J. B. Lippincott and Co. (Philadelphia, PA, 1921), p. 134-135, reproduced facing page 134, pastel reproduction facing page 135
  • Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, J. B. Lippincott Company (Philadelphia, PA and London, England, 1923), p. 275
  • Harvey M. Watts, "The John F. Braun Collection of American Art", Arts & Decoration (July 1926), vol. 25, pp. 46-47, reproduced p. 47
  • Daniel Catton Rich, Catalogue of a Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture Lent from American Collections, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, 1933), no. 434
  • Burns A. Stubbs, 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, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C, 1948), p. 22
  • Denys Sutton, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, Phaidon Press Limited (London, England, 1963), p. 72
  • Denys Sutton, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolors, Phaidon Press (London, England, 1966), reproduced pl. 63
  • Stuart Preston, Whistler, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1971)
  • Andrew McLaren Young and Margaret F. MacDonald, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, Yale University Press (New Haven, 1980), vol I no. 131, p. 79; vol II, reproduced b/w plate 83
  • David Park Curry, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, exh. cat., Freer Gallery of Art / W.W. Norton & Co. (New York and Washington, DC, 1984), reproduced in b/w fig. 240.3, p. 255
  • Eleanor Heartney, "What's Wrong with Beauty?", Independent Curators Inc. (Winter 1987), vol. II, no. 1
  • Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: A Reexamination, ed. Ruth E. Fine, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., 1987), reproduced in b/w fig. 1, p. 13; text p. 13-14
  • Timothy Anglin Burgard, American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1994), p. 12, cat. 86
  • Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi, The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, 1998), vol. 2, note 171.2, p. 154
  • Jonathan Weinberg, Amibition and Love in Modern American Art, Yale University Press (2001), page 26
  • Chikashi Kitazaki and Mina Oya, ed., Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Ueno, 2002), pp. 222-223, cat. #70, color repr.
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), pp. 468-69, cat. 213, ill.
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), pp. 484-85, cat. 213, ill.
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 405-08, cat. no. 435, reproduced in color, p. 407
  • Betsy Fahlman, Kraushaar Galleries: Celebrating 125 Years, Kraushaar Galleries (New York, 2010), detail, p. 6; ill., p. 9

Exhibition History

  • Mr. Whistler's Exhibition, Flemish Gallery, London, 01/01/1874 - 12/31/1874
  • Unidentified Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, 1877, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 05/01/1877 - 05/31/1877
  • World of Fair Women, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, London, 01/01/1910 - 12/31/1910
  • American Painting in the Braun Collection, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 01/01/1930 - 12/31/1930
  • Master Paintings from the Fogg Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/13/1977 - 08/31/1977
  • American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/01/1994 - 12/30/1994
  • The Persistence of Memory: Continuity and Change in American Cultures, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/29/1995 - 05/13/2001
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004
  • 32Q: 2710 North Arcade, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 06/22/2021
  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/24/2023 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu