Titles

Suggested titles include:

• 'Sketch of Mr. Whistler' (1910, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). 1
• 'Self-Portrait' (1980, YMSM). 2

'Self-Portrait' is the preferred title.

Description

Self-Portrait, Freer Gallery of Art

A half-length portrait, in vertical format, of a man in profile to right. He wears a dark jacket over a white collar, and a black hat with a narrow brim. He has a moustache and curly dark hair, with a white lock visible just under the hat-brim, at the front. The background is dark grey.

Sitter

H.S. Mendelssohn, J. McN. Whistler, photograph 1884/1888, GUL Whistler PH1/108

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). This is one of many self-portraits, spanning Whistler's entire career, namely Self-Portrait [YMSM 008], Portrait of Whistler with Hat [YMSM 023], Self-Portrait [YMSM 078], Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of the Painter [YMSM 122], Self-Portrait [YMSM 124], Brown and Gold [YMSM 440], Self-Portrait [YMSM 460], Self-Portrait [YMSM 461], and Gold and Brown [YMSM 462].

Comments

The Pennells, on the strength of a reproduction, doubted the authenticity of Self-Portrait [YMSM 124]. 3 Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975), on the other hand, was inclined to accept the picture, as being of about the same date as the self-portrait in Detroit (Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of the Painter [YMSM 122]).

It is worth noting that its provenance suggests that it was given in settlement of Whistler's debts to a grocer in Cheyne Walk, where Whistler lived, off and on, for many years. Although at first it seems unlikely that Whistler would give anyone an unfinished self-portrait, it is not impossible, given his precarious financial state in the late 1870s, and indeed, his erratic fortunes much later.

The Greaves family, including the Whistler's pupil and admirer, the artist Walter Greaves (1846-1930) also lived in Cheyne Walk, and Greaves painted a number of portraits of Whistler, including a striking portrait in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 4497), and some less competent ones, probably done from memory. 4 There are inevitable similarities between portraits of Whistler by Greaves and those by Whistler, and it is just possible that this Self-Portrait [YMSM 124] is by Greaves.

Finally, although the authenticity of the painting has been questioned, the authors of the 1980 catalogue and of this online catalogue believe, on the whole, that the Self-Portrait under discussion to be by Whistler. Its date, however, remains a mystery.