Provenance

• 1878: bought from the artist by Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890), London.
• Before 1897: possibly Thomas Glen Arthur (1858-1907), Ayr, Scotland.
• 1897: Boussod, Valadon & Cie (Goupil), London.
• Before 1902: William Burrell (1861-1958), Glasgow;
• 1902: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 16 May 1902 (lot 158) as 'Sketch for the head of Miss Cicely Alexander', bought in by Hardy at 85 guineas.
• 1905: Alexander Reid (1854-1928), Glasgow;
• 1907: sold by Reid to Wunderlich, New York dealers, March 1907, for £400.
• Date unknown: bought from Durand-Ruel, art dealer, New York, by Frank Gair Macomber (1849-1941), Boston;
• 1941: bequeathed to his daughter, Isabella Ogden Reed Macomber (Mrs Charles F. Lyman) (b. ca 1880, m. 1899), and passed by family descent to her granddaughter, Elizabeth L. Robb, Mrs J. Hampden Robb (1901-1987), Beverly Farms, MA, and Mrs Robb's son, Richard L. Jackson (dates unknown), Washington, DC;
• 1970: at auction, Christie's, London, 11 December 1970 (lot 163), bought in by Mrs Sieff (dates unknown) at 8000 guineas;
• 1978: sold by Richard L. Jackson (dates unknown) to the Peterson Galleries, Beverly Hills, CA;
• 1979: bought by Dr John Larkin (n/a), White Bear Lake Minnesota;
• By 1981: Jonathan Westervelt Warner, Sr (1917-2017), Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Gulf States Paper Corporation, later Westervelt Co.);
• 2017: passed on his death to the Christie's, New York;
• 2019: art market, New York.

According to the Pennells, 22 February 1878 C. A. Howell recorded in his diary the purchase of 'a sketch of Miss Alexander' together with four other works from Whistler for £50. 1 The provenance is somewhat confusing and not entirely complete.

According to a later owner, F. G. Macomber, it was at one time owned by the collector and textile manufacturer T. G. Arthur (who died in February 1907, and had then been living for ten years in Algiers). The Art Journal in October 1897 reproduced it as the property of Boussod, Valadon & Co. 2 Since the butterfly signature is of the kind used by Whistler in 1897, it was probably signed by Whistler with his butterfly at the request of Boussod, Valadon & Co.

However, although the precise details are not known, the painting seems to have stayed in Scotland, or returned there. It was consigned by the important Glasgow collector William Burrell to Christie's, 16 May 1902 (lot 158) but failed to sell and was bought in by Hardy at 85 guineas. According to Singer, it was owned in 1905 by 'Alexander Barr' but this was almost certainly incorrect since in the same year it was lent by the Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London (cat. no. 74), and it was sold by Reid to Wunderlich's in March 1907, for £400. 3 Shortly afterwards it was in America and was lent anonymously to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in June 1907.

The next ten years are less clear, partly because its history overlaps with that of Alice Butt (1) [YMSM 437].

It may have been owned in 1907 by F. G. Macomber, Boston, who had, at some time unknown, bought it from Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York dealer, for $425. 4 It passed to his daughter, Mrs Charles Lyman, and granddaughter, Mrs J. Hampden Robb, and then to Richard L. Jackson, who lent it to Princeton University Art Museum, N.J. It was on the market through the Adams Davidson Galleries in 1972, and sold to the Petersen Galleries, Beverly Hills, in September 1978. Dr John Larkin bought it in March 1879.

It was later sold to Jack Warner of the Gulf States Paper Corporation, which later became the Westervelt Company. The Westervelt collection was housed in Tuscaloosa Museum of Art, which closed in 2018, after Jack Warner's death. The painting remained in the possession of the Gulf States Foundation in 2018 and by 2019 was placed on deposit at Christie's, New York, with a view to selling it. Its current whereabouts is unknown.

Exhibitions

• 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. 74) as 'Study for the head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander'.

The size was given incorrectly in the catalogue as 10 x 14 1/2 inches.