Provenance

• 1900: possibly bequeathed by William McNeill Whistler (1836-1900) to his wife, Helen ('Nellie') Euphrosyne Whistler (1849-1917);
• 1909/1911: sold by Helen Euphrosyne Whistler.
• 1911: Burton Mansfield (1856-1932), New Haven;
• 1918: bought by Robert G. Vose Galleries, Boston dealers, 19 October 1918;
• 1919: sold to William T. Cresmer (fl. 1916/1955), Chicago, 28 January 1919;
• Date unknown: sold by Cresmer to the Anderson Art Galleries, Chicago;
• Date unknown: sold by them to Mrs Moses J. Wentworth (1862-1935), Chicago;
• 1935: passed by family succession to her son, John Wentworth (d. 1958), and his widow, Mrs John Wentworth (d. 1977), Chicago and Paris;
• 1977: passed after her death in July 1977 to her estate;
• 1978: given by the executors of her estate to the Art Institute of Chicago.

It may have been given by Whistler to the sitter, William McNeill Whistler, or their mother, Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881). It was certainly in the possession of William's widow, Helen E. Whistler, by 1903, according to Way & Dennis. 1 In 1909 it was offered for sale to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, who thought 'It was once a very charming sketch but it has received a lot of hard usage', and returned it to London. 2 According to the Pennells, it was still in Helen E. Whistler's possession in February 1909. 3 However it was sold at some time around then. By 1911 it was owned by Burton Mansfield, and he lent it to an exhibition in Pittsburgh (cat. no. 71). Thereafter the provenance is fairly clear, though precise dates are not known, until it entered the Art Institute of Chicago in 1978.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 103) as 'Portrait of Dr. William McNeill Whistler'.

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