The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve dates from 1870/1873 and may have been touched up and signed 1888/1890.

Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve, Fogg Art Museum

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 370).

Images

Subject

Sitter

Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve, Fogg Art Museum

Matilda Maria Gilchrist née Potter (1826-1886).

She posed for the etching Tillie: A Model [113] and probably for the figure at left in The White Symphony: Three Girls y087 and The Three Girls y088.

Technique

Composition

Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve, Fogg Art Museum

The White Symphony: Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

This drawing may be a study for the etching Tillie: A Model [113] and is also closely related to the figure at left in The White Symphony: Three Girls y087 and The Three Girls y088. It is fairly highly finished, and was signed, possibly for sale, in 1890.

History

Provenance

• 1890: bought from Whistler by John Postle Heseltine (1843-1929), London;
• 1919: bought by Colnaghi's and Knoedler's in partnership, 25 February;
• 1919: bought by J. R. Annan, Glasgow art dealer, 2 June.
• Date unknown: owned by Leonard Gow (1859-1936), Helensburgh;
• 1937: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 28 May 1937 (lot 31) as 'Tilly, a model', and bought by Colnaghi, London art dealers;
• 1937: Knoedler's and C. Carstairs, New York art dealers, took shares, 31 May;
• 1940: taken by Carroll Carstairs (1889-1948), New York art dealer, 29 May;
• 1941: sold to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943)
• 1943: bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum.

Exhibitions

• 1905: probably Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 135) as 'Modèle drapé'.
• 1905: probably 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. 113a) as 'Model leaning forward … looking to right'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 370) as 'Tillie: Study in Pink and Mauve'.
• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (oils, cat. nos. 87-88).
• Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2012, online website.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Probably Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 135) as 'Modèle drapé'.
• Probably 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. 113a, repr.) as 'Model leaning forward ...looking to right'.

Journals 1855-1905

• La Revue Indépendente de littérature et d'art, new series, vol. 1, edition de luxe, 1886, repr.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, repr. f. p. 146.

Books, General

• Stebbins, Theodore E. Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, (eds), American Paintings at Harvard, Vol. 2, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008,p p. 396-98, cat. no. 428, repr.

Websites

• Harvard Art Museums website at https://www.harvardartmuseums.org.