Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Miss Charlotte R. Williams

Titles

Only one title has been suggested:

  • 'Miss Charlotte R. Williams' (1980, YMSM). 1

Description

The sitter described it as a 'full length in miniature size' :

'I wore a grey dress, silver slippers with tiny pink bows - I am seated on a sofa, my wrap over the end & my arm resting on the collar or near it. The collar is fur & the coat lining rose. Near my hand on the sofa is a bunch or boquet [sic] of violets. My hair is rolled off my face as always & you will recognize the likeness to Lizzie.' 2

Sitter

Portrait Study: Miss Charlotte R. Williams, lithograph
Portrait Study: Miss Charlotte R. Williams, lithograph

Charlotte Carter Ritchie Williams (1861-1920) of Baltimore was the daughter of George Hawkins Williams (1818-1889) and Eleanor Addison Gittings (1824-1881). She sat to Whistler for a lithograph, Portrait Study: Miss Charlotte R. Williams c058 in 1893, and the oil portrait may date from then. 3 She married the physician Walter Prescott Smith (1868-1902) and their son, Alan Prescott Smith, was born in 1896.

Notes:

1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 407).

2: The sitter, Charlotte R. Smith to Thomas Chatard, her brother-in-law, 4 October 1903, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress.

3: Spink 1998 [more] (cat. no. 58).

Last updated: 25th October 2019 by Margaret