The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Three Girls, I.S. Gardner Museum

The Three Girls dates from between 1887 and 1892. The faint butterfly at left suggests a date of about 1887.

The subject closely resembles a composition known as the The Three Girls y088 that was commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892) in 1867. Whistler was still working on it in 1879, but it is unlikely that this sketch dates from that early.

The Three Girls, I.S. Gardner Museum

The White Symphony:Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

An oil study for The Three Girls, known as The White Symphony: Three Girls y087, was owned by Thomas Way (1837-1915), and it was exhibited at the Society of British Artists in the winter of 1887-1888 (cat. no. 352). It is possible that Whistler painted the small sketch at this point, but there are important differences in the composition.

Pink and Grey: Three Figure, Tate Britain

The Three Girls, I.S. Gardner Museum

The original Three Girls disappeared at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy, but in 1879 he painted an oil copy, Pink and Grey: Three Figures y089. In 1891 this came on the London market and Whistler publicly described it as 'a work long ago barely begun, and thrown aside for destruction …' (Morning Post, 27 July 1891). The composition of the small sketch is slightly more like Pink and Grey: Three Figure and may have been inspired by it.

In November 1892 the Gardners bought Harmony in Blue and Silver: Trouville y064. It is possible that Whistler drew the small sketch to warn the Gardners against buying the copy, and/or to give them an idea of the original painting.

The sketch is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1163). The record has been updated.

Images

Subject

Description

A study of three draped women in a garden, related to The White Symphony: Three Girls y087.

Technique

Composition

Study of 'The Three Girls', The Hunterian

The Three Girls, I. S. Gardner Museum

The White Symphony:Three Girls, Freer Gallery of Art

Pink and Grey: Three Figure, Tate Britain

Both this sketch and an earlier one, Study of 'The Three Girls' m0361, differ from the extant oils, in having billowing awnings on the left. Both resemble The White Symphony:Three Girls in having the right hand figure in opaque robes, her stole trailing behind her, carrying a pot in her right hand; and in having blossoms in the upper left corner. Both differ, in omitting the fan from the left hand figure, and defining her clothes less clearly. The central figure looks more like the girl in Pink and Grey: Three Figures, but the pot she is tending is round sided instead of straight.

Conservation History

There is a tiny hole at the top, in the awning, and a dent in the paper to lower right. The paint has faded and the paper, which has a faint, fine diagonally chequered grain, has darkened. Despite this, the colours are bright, like the oil sketch, The White Symphony:Three Girls , rather than the oil copy, Pink and Grey: Three Figure .

History

Provenance

• 1887/1892: possibly given by Whistler to Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924), Boston;
• 1924: bequeathed to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website suggests the following provenance:

'Possibly entered the collection of the lithographic printer Thomas Way (1837-1915) from James McNeill Whistler on 18 September 1879. Possibly returned to James McNeill Whistler by Thomas Way, about 1880-1881. Possibly entered Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection through James McNeill Whistler, 1886 or 1892.' ¹

The involvement of Thomas Way (1837-1915) is not certain, because the drawing dates from later than the 1879 suggested.

It is much more likely that the drawing was given by Whistler to Mrs Gardner, possibly in 1892.

Exhibitions

There is no record of an exhibition in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1163) as 'The Three Girls'.
• 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. 87-89).

Books, General

• Longstreet , Gilbert Wendel, and Morris Carter, General Catalogue, Boston, 1935, p. 249.
• Gribbon, Deborah, Whistler's Sketch of an Unfinished Symphony,' Fenway Court, Boston, 1980, pp. 26-33, repr. fig. 1, p. 26 as 'Three Figures'.

Websites

• Three Girls, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, website.