The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling dates from 1877 or 1878.

In a diary entry that appears to read 22 July 1877, the architect Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) recorded, 'Saw Whistler paint full length of Mrs. Jopling in an hour and a half. An almost awful exhibition of nervous power and concentration.' ¹ Jopling's diary, which remained in the family and is in a private collection, records a sitting on 17 February 1878, 'Whistler made me sit, or rather stand to him for a full length life sized sketch portrait, which he dashed off in a couple of hours, before the eyes of the guests who had come to his breakfast.' ² However, the description of the portrait by Mrs Jopling does not entirely fit with the portrait as it is now. She described it as 'a full length life sized sketch portrait ... a symphony in salmon and black. I had a trailing black silk skirt … and over it a Princesse robe, cleverly evolved by my dressmaker from a salmon pink chudder shawl[,] & a tocque with crimson roses.' ³

Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling, The Hunterian

The 'Princess robe' as seen in the extant portrait is a pale cream, almost white, close-fitting, looped up and gathered at the back. It is definitely not 'salmon pink'.

Several possibilities exist: that there were two portraits, or that Whistler rubbed down and reworked the one described by Jopling at that time, or later.

Images

Subject

Titles

Whistler's original title is not known. The suggested titles are:

• 'full length of Mrs Jopling' (1877, E. W. Godwin). ⁴
• 'a symphony in salmon and black' (1878, L. Jopling). ⁵
• 'Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black (Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling)' (1936, Hunterian). ⁶
• 'Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

Louise Jopling described the painting as 'a symphony in salmon and black' but it is simply not known if that was a description or a title. The earliest published title for the painting, as late as 1936, may have come originally from Whistler and been recorded by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) , who gave the painting to the University of Glasgow. The punctuation was regularised to be consistent with other titles in 1980, and thus 'Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling' became the accepted title.

Description

Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling, The Hunterian

A full-length portrait of a woman seen from the back, with her head turned in profile to left. She has very dark hair, tied with red ribbons. Her dress is a creamy white, fitting at the top, with narrow sleeves, and the skirt loosely gathered up at the back. She has a black scarf round her neck, and a gold necklace. The background is a rich black. The portrait is in vertical format.

Sitter

The artist, Louise Jopling (1843-1933).

H. R. Barraud, Louise Jopling, carbon print, National Portrait Gallery, NPG Ax8712

Louise Jane Jopling (née Goode, later Rowe) recorded the sitting later, remembering that, after breakfast in Whistler's London studio, she 'stood for two hours without a rest in which time he had painted a life-sized full-length of me. I wonder where that portrait sketch vanished to.' ⁸

J. E. Millais, Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling,National Portrait Gallery.

John Everett Millais (1829-1896) painted a portrait of Louise Jopling-Rowe in 1879 and exhibited it at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 1880 (cat. no. 49). ⁹ She recollected sitting for Millais:

'I arrived about 10.30, stood until lunchtime, and then had about another hour after. It took [Millais] exactly five days. But then I sat with all the knowledge of a portrait painter. I knew that the better I sat, the sooner the work would be finished, and, also, the better the portrait would be. And so it turned out, for Millais' portrait of me is considered to be the finest woman portrait he ever painted.' ¹⁰

Technique

Composition

Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling, The Hunterian

Harmony in Pink and Red, Whereabouts unknown, photograph

In pose and costume Whistler's portrait of Mrs Jopling closely resembles Harmony in Pink and Red y192, a portrait of Maud Franklin (1857-1939). In colour this was closer to the colours mentioned by Jopling in her account of the 1878 sitting, except that the model was not wearing a tocque.

Technique

The canvas is a very coarse-woven tabby, the texture emphasized by the bumps and slubs of the fine close-woven tabby lining. It may have been prepared with a white priming, and certainly with a mid-dark grey imprimatura, the grey making an optical contribution to the ruffled fabric. ¹¹ The coarse canvas provides subtle textures.

As might be expected from E. W. Godwin's account, the portrait was painted extremely fluidly with a broad long-haired brush, up to 3.8 cm (1½") wide, on the dress. The canvas must have been prepared in advance, for Mrs Jopling's face was painted over the dark background. Whistler confidently sketched the figure in grey, followed by sweeping brush strokes in cream and pink applied with a wide soft-haired brush, probably used side-on for the broad strokes.

The face, which is highly finished, is slightly marred by a scratch across the nose, but, with her dark eyes painted slightly more dryly than the rest of the picture, and the hat indicated by broad wet stroke of red, the portrait creates a strikingly dramatic effect.

Patricia de Montfort comments :

'Whistler worked swiftly, blocking in the flesh colour and grey tones of the figure in order to preserve a fluidity of effect within the overall red and white on black colour scheme. The result captures her vivacity and sharp intelligence, qualities that are accentuated by the angular composition and the coarse weave of the canvas support and the subtle gleam of the fabric of her white dress.' ¹²

Conservation History

The lined canvas is in excellent condition apart from lead soap aggregates that are beginning to push through. This, and the thin paint (which, though thin, has not run), suggests the use of a ‘sauce’ (or megilp) with added lead driers. The lining has caused some weave-interference. ¹³

There are widespread signs of abrasion, possibly by the artist, and possibly as part of the painting process. The support and paint are basically in sound condition, though the canvas may have been folded at some time, and there are some signs of paint loss and cracking. The canvas was extended with a 2-2.5 cm deep band at the top, possibly when the picture was unrolled, repaired, lined, retouched (particularly on the face) and varnished. The varnish is now rather thick, glossy and yellowed. ¹⁴

Frame

Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling, The Hunterian

Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling, frame detail

It is in a Portrait Whistler frame, date unknown. 206.5 x 105.0 x 6.8 cm. ¹⁵

History

Provenance

• 1878/1879: it is not known how Whistler retained or regained possession of this portrait at the time of his bankruptcy, or afterwards;
• 1903: in Whistler's studio on his death and bequeathed to Whistler's ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1935: given by Miss R. Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.

Paintings in Whistler's studio at the time of his bankruptcy were supposed to be sold unless they were unfinished or destroyed. This portrait must somehow have been concealed, since obviously Mrs Jopling had no idea what had happened to it. It may have been among rolled-up canvases saved by his brother or other friends, and returned to Whistler much later.

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's life time.

Under the terms of Miss R. Birnie Philip's gift to the University of Glasgow, it is not lendable.

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. 191), plate 155, as 'Harmony in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Mrs Louise Jopling'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Anderson, Ronald, and Ann Koval, James McNeill Whistler: Beyond the Myth, London, 1994, pp. 204-05.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Whistler's Mother's Cook Book, London, 1979, p. 43.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 10, 19, 26, 41, 50, 129, 138, repr. fig. 16.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963,p. 76, repr. pl. 34.
• Walker, John, James McNeill Whistler, New York, 1987, p. 78, repr.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 10-11.

Books, General

• Bendiner, Kenneth, An Introduction to Victorian Painting, New Haven and London, 1985, pp. 90, 60 note 23.
• Jopling, Louise, Twenty Years of My Life, 1867 to 1887, London, 1925, p. 71, photograph of sitter repr. f.p. 124.
• Millais, John G., Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais PRA, 2 vols., London, 1899, vol. 1, pp. 443-45.
• de Montfort, Patricia, Louise Jopling: a biographical and cultural study of the modern woman artist in Victorian Britain, Abingdon & New York, 2017, pp. 80-82, 106 note 36, repr. p. 81.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• James McNeill Whistler, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 1936 (cat. no. 27).
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Whistler Pastels and Related Works in the Hunterian Art Gallery, Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, 1984, p. 7 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• MacDonald, Margaret F., 'Maud Franklin', in: Ruth Fine (ed.), James McNeill Whistler: A Reexamination, Studies in the History of Art, vol. 19, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 13-26, at pp. 15, 25 note 7.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., 'What is a Whistler?', in ed. Lee Glazer, et al (eds.), James McNeill Whistler in Context: Essays from the Whistler Centenary Symposium, University of Glasgow, 2003, Freer Gallery of Art Occasional Papers, New Series, Vol. 2, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2008, p. 2.
• Nunn, Pamela Gerrish (ed.), Canvassing. Recollections by six Victorian artists, London, 1986, pp. 150-51, repr.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/41057.
• ArtUK website at https://artuk.org.
• de Montfort, Patricia, Louise Jopling: A Research Project website at http://www.louisejopling.arts.gla.ac.uk/research.
• 'Louise Jane Jopling', National Portrait Gallery website at http://www.npg.org.uk.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 105).

Other

• None.