The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, Private Collection

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen may have been started in some form between 1863 and 1867, but it is more likely that it was painted between 1873 and 1879. It may have been painted in whole or in part by Walter Greaves (1846-1930).

Sketch for 'La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine', Worcester Art Museum

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, Private Collection

1863/1864: Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975) suggested that the model was similar to Sketch for 'La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine' y049, which implied a date of 1863/1864. ¹ However, the model and setting are different, and the brushwork (where it is not rubbed down) is only superficially like Whistler's.

Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, Tate Britain

1863-1867: The fireplace that appears in Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen y051 is similar to the one in Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl y052, which was in the dining room on the ground floor at 7 Lindsey Row, Chelsea, where Whistler lived from March 1863 to 1867.

However, the dress is not remotely like the tight-waisted, wide-skirted fashions of the period from 1863 to 1867.

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, Private Collection

Portrait of Maud Franklin, early version of Portrait of Miss Florence Leyland, Portland Art Museum

1875: The dress, in overall shape and in detail, looks later in date. It is similar to that seen in portraits dating from around 1875, such as that reproduced above.

1879: It is just possible that Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen y051 was started by Whistler but scraped down and mainly destroyed by him at the time of his bankruptcy.

1910: It could then have been repaired and reworked by another hand about 1910 (see further details under HISTORY and TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION tabs.

Images

Subject

Titles

There are a few variations in title and punctuation, as follows:

• 'Arrangement in Flesh-colour and Grey – The Chinese Screen' (1910?, Joseph Pennell). ²
• 'The Chinese Screen; an arrangement in Flesh-colour and grey' (1917, Christie's). ³
• 'Lady in a White Dress' (1959, Leicester Galleries). ⁴
• 'Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

'Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen' is the preferred title, although it was not invented by Whistler.

Description

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, Private Collection

A full-length portrait study, in small vertical format, showing a woman in an interior. The woman is standing, her body facing left, but looking at the viewer; she has dark hair arranged in a bun high on her head; she wears a grey dress with a white bodice, with either a fichu or cream ruffles at the front, and narrow sleeves also trimmed with off-white at the wrist. Behind her is a folding screen decorated with unidentifiable shapes in many colours including pale blue, cream, pale brown and orange. Behind and to left of the screen is a white fireplace, with roundels at the upper corners, the grate dark. Sprays of blossoms stand in round glass bowls on the mantelpiece in front of a mirror. There are numerous marks of rubbing out and alterations all over the canvas.

Site

The scene slightly resembles the front room in Whistler's house at Lindsey Row, Chelsea, but could well be similar to that in neighbouring houses.

Sitter

Unknown.

Comments

There have been questions about the authorship of this painting.

In 1910, Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936) at first accepted the authenticity of this painting, but her husband, Joseph Pennell (1860-1926) apparently questioned it, and elicited from Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929) that the screen had been partly repainted recently. ⁶

It appears that these doubts came to be shared by the London art dealer Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929), and the painting was sold as by Walter Greaves (1846-1930) at Christie's in London on 9 February 1917 (lot 309) with the title 'The Chinese Screen; an arrangement in Flesh-colour and grey' .

It is possible that it was inspired by Whistler but painted by Walter Greaves, since as it stands there is nothing in the visible technique and brushwork that suggests Whistler's work. But it is also possible that it was based on, or painted over, a portrait by Whistler.

Denys Sutton (1917-1991) thought, like Joseph Pennell, that it was 'a border-line case' as a painting by Whistler. ⁷

Technique

Composition

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, Private Collection

La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine, Freer Gallery of Art

On the evidence of the screen, it has been compared to La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine y050, but there is no real connection.

There are signs of revisions and pentimenti, quite apart from the brutal scraping down of the whole composition. For instance, there is more than one change to the shape of the skirt at lower right.

Technique

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, Private Collection

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, detail, Private Collection

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, detail, Private Collection

It was thinly painted and scraped down, and possibly repainted by an unknown hand. It would be an unusual size for Whistler (one that was more usual in his much later work, in the 1890s). The brushwork that is visible is not like Whistler's work.

Conservation History

Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929) told Joseph Pennell in 1910 that the screen in the picture had been partly repainted. ⁸

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, photograph, 1980

A photograph of 1980 shows no radical changes.

Frame

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, frame

Grau-style frame, in a style dating from after 1892, and probably a much later addition.

History

Provenance

• In or before 1910: Walter Thomas Spencer (1864-1936), a second-hand bookseller at 27 New Oxford Street, sold 'rolls of canvases' to Frida Uhl Strindberg (1872-1943);
• 1910, September: Mme Strindberg sold about fifty canvases to Messrs Dowdeswell;
• 1910: on 15 September Dowdeswell showed Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936) an unsigned painting, which matches the description of Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen;
• 1917: sold by Messrs Dowdeswell at auction, Christie's, London, 9 February 1917 (lot 309) as 'The Chinese Screen; an arrangement in Flesh-colour and grey' by Walter Greaves (1846-1930), and bought by 'Martin' for 25 guineas.
• 1924: sold by a private collector through the Leicester Galleries to Maud Field (Mrs H. G. Clegg) (1872-1933);
• 1933: on her death, passed to her daughter, Laura Kathleen Clegg, Lady Ismay (1897-1978);
• 1965: given to her daughter, Sarah Field Ismay (Viscountess Allendale) (1928-2021), Stocksfield-on-Tyne, Northumberland.
• After 1980: acquired for a private collection.

The early provenance of this painting is unknown.

It has been suggested that the history of Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen goes back to Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879, when the Receiver, James Waddell (1838-1892), gave Whistler permission to destroy unfinished work. There is, however, no proof that this painting was among the destroyed works.

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen is associated with a group of paintings that may or may not have been originally painted by Whistler. The recorded history of this group starts in 1910.

In 1910 Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936) and Joseph Pennell (1860-1926) were shown a very large group of paintings by the London art dealers Messrs Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell. ⁹ Joseph Pennell speculated that these rolls of canvases might have come from Walter Greaves (1846-1930), or 'directly or indirectly', from Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890) or his heirs. ¹⁰

Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929) described the history of these canvasses as he understood it. Walter T. Spencer, a second-hand bookseller at 27 New Oxford Street, sold 'rolls of canvases' to Frida Strindberg 'for nothing'; and in September 1910 Mme Strindberg sold 'about fifty' to Messrs Dowdeswell, who described the paintings as 'shockingly dirty but they saw passages that were unmistakably Whistler'. ¹¹ On 15 September Dowdeswell showed Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936) an unsigned painting of an interior,

‘a woman, with black hair done up high on her head, wearing a grey dress, standing in front of a Japanese screen, a mantelpiece not unlike the mantelpiece in "The Little White Girl" behind it, not particularly good but the skirt was absolutely the Whistler of "The Six Projects": evidently a study of Miss Spartali for "La Princess du Pays de la Porcelaine".' ¹²

Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, Private Collection

This description fits Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen but the Pennells were wrong in suggesting that it was a study of Marie Spartali (Mrs W. J. Stillman) (1844-1927) for La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine y050.

Furthermore, it would appear that doubts grew as to the authorship of Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen, which was sold as by Walter Greaves (1846-1930) by Messrs Dowdeswell in 1917. ¹³

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 51), plate 82, as 'Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey: The Chinese Screen'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 257.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, pp. 125-27.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 13).

SALE:

• Christie's, London, 9 February 1917 (lot 309) as 'The Chinese Screen; an arrangement in Flesh-colour and grey'.

Journals 1906-Present

• Sutton, Denys, 'A Whistler Exhibition', Burlington Magazine, vol. 102, October 1960, pp. 460-61, at p. 460.

Websites

• None.

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• None.