Titles

Two possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Portrait' (1912, National Gallery of British Art). 1
• 'Portrait of Alexander Arnold Hannay' (1980, YMSM). 2
• 'Alexander Arnold Hannay' (2015, National Gallery of Art).

The full 1980 title is preferred, 'Portrait of Alexander Arnold Hannay'.

Description

Portrait of Alexander Arnold Hannay, National Gallery of Art

A small full-length portrait of a man, in vertical format. He has slightly curly dark hair and a neat curving moustache. He wears a black coat, black trousers, and a neatly tied black cravat over a white shirt. He stands near the corner of a room (the corner is behind him, to left) on a greenish-grey floor against a pinkish-beige wall. The light comes from the left and a shadow falls on the wall to right.

Sitter

Alexander Arnold Hannay (1858-1927) was born in Dundee on 26 January 1858, the son of Alexander Hannay and Mary Agnes Hawson. He married Alice Mary (b. 1866) in 1888. Their children were Margaret Alice, born in 1888, Alexander H. Hannay in 1890 and Katharine in 1895. A. A. Hannay was a solicitor; he died in September 1927.

Hannay was buying from Whistler directly (or through the Company of the Butterfly) probably from late 1896 and certainly between 1900-1901. At that time he was living at 17 Sackville Street, St James's, London. He owned a number of works by Whistler, including Nocturne: Westminster - Grey and Gold [YMSM 144], Cremorne Gardens, No. 2 [YMSM 164], The Little White Sofa [YMSM 258], The Shop Window [YMSM 377], Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec [YMSM 382], and two late works, The Sea, Pourville, No. 1 [YMSM 516] and The Sea, Pourville, No. 2 [YMSM 519].