The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes probably dates from between late 1892 and the autumn of 1893. ¹

This portrait was probably commissioned by the sitter's father, Edward G. Woakes (1837-1912), a doctor then practising in Harley Street, London. Théodore Duret (1838-1927) wrote that it was painted from about the winter of 1890 until mid-1891, but later revised this to a date of 1892, which is more likely. ²

Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes, Phillips Memorial Gallery

Whistler had asked for three sittings but took about twenty-five, and he intended the pink bow at the neck of her blouse to stand for his butterfly signature but, on the insistence of the sitter, he added a conventional butterfly to the left of the neck. ³ The painting was given to Dr Woakes unvarnished, to be varnished a year or so later when Whistler advised it. ⁴

Images

Subject

Titles

Minor variations on the title have been suggested:

• 'Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes' (1980, YMSM). ⁵
• 'Miss Lillian Woakes' (2015, Phillips Collection). ⁶

'Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes' is the preferred title.

Description

Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes, Phillips Memorial Gallery

A half-length portrait of a young woman in vertical format. She has dark curly hair, and looks directly at the viewer. The light comes from the left. Her dress is white with grey gathered or puffed sleeves; it has complex folds and frills, a pale blue trim around the neckline, and a pale pink bow above her breast.

Sitter

Lilian Woakes (1866-1843) was twenty-two or twenty-three when she posed. Whistler seems to have met her father Edward G. Woakes (1837-1912) through his brother William McNeill Whistler (1836-1900).

Technique

Technique

Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes, Phillips Memorial Gallery

Painted on fine canvas with medium, 6-7 mm (¼"), sized brushes, the paint slightly thicker than usual, and the face highly worked to an even, matt finish. Around her hair and eyes, and on her dress, the surface modelling is done with thinner washes of paint, like delicate varnishes of colour. The details of the face – eyes and nose – are painted with a smaller brush, but are dominated by the confident, dramatic brushstroke that defines the line of her eyebrow and fringe. The colour is vibrant, with touches of red – a red ribbon in Miss Woakes's dark hair, against the deep red background – plus the loosely painted pale pinks and greens of her dress.

In 1895 Whistler wrote about certain works which should have been destroyed, or touched up, 'there are canvases that may be saved ... and perhaps one day the little Woak[e]s.' ⁷

For all his implied criticism of the painting, it is one of the most solidly modelled and finely coloured of his portraits, and the vigour and warmth of the girl's face is directly appealing.

Conservation History

In 1893, the painting was given to Dr Woakes unvarnished, the intention being that it would be varnished a year or so later when Whistler advised it. ⁸

Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes, photograph, 1980

Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes, Phillips Memorial Gallery

A 1954 conservation report gives details of the removal of the earlier lining canvas and cheesecloth backing of the original canvas, and of discoloured and cracked varnish and repainting. Cracks and chipping along the cracks were infilled and losses inpainted, the canvas was restretched and resurfaced. ⁹

Photographs show no further changes in the painting.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• 1892/1893: commissioned by the sitter's father, Edward G. Woakes (1837-1912), London;
• In or by 1911: sold to A. J. Sully & Co.;
• 1911: sold by Knoedler's, New York art dealers, to Henry Reinhardt (1859–1921), New York art dealer;
• 1914: bought back by Knoedler's;
• 1916: sold by Knoedler's to Nathan Allen Jr (1855-1924), Kenosha, WI;
• 1917: returned to Knoedler's;
• 1920: sold by Knoedler's to Duncan Phillips (1886-1966) for the Phillips Memorial Gallery.

According to dealers' records, it was bought from Woakes by A. J. Sully & Co., who sold it to Knoedler's. It was with Henry Reinhardt in November 1911 and exhibited in New York in 1911 and Buffalo in 1912. ¹⁰ Knoedler's bought it on 18 March 1914, and exhibited it in New York in 1914 (cat. no. 3) as 'Miss Lilian Wookes [sic]' for sale at $22,000. ¹¹ Nathan Allen bought it from Knoedler's in October 1916, but returned it in January 1917, and it was finally sold by Knoedler's to the Phillips Memorial Gallery in July 1920. Knoedler's account numbers are: NY 13451 (ON 12468), and NY 14054.

The Phillips Collection website gives an interesting insight on the purchase, suggesting links to the work of European masters including Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660), Jean-Désiré-Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), and Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834-1917), and Americans including Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) and Winslow Homer (1836-1910):

'In purchasing Miss Lillian Woakes in 1920, his first Whistler painting, Duncan Phillips may have been inspired by Freer's 1919 bequest to the nation of his substantial art collection, which included more than three hundred works by Whistler. In selecting this portrait he showed his preference for those aspects of Whistler's work that link him to the realism of Courbet and Degas, and to the earlier naturalism of Velázquez. Phillips appears to have been drawn to the remarkable balance between the artist's purely decorative concern for a harmonious arrangement of color, tonality, and accents and his desire to convey the forthright personality of his subject. In the 1930s and 1940s, Phillips often hung the portrait with the works of French painters such as Corot, Degas, and Daumier, but by the 1950s and 1960s Phillips placed the portrait with American masters such as Eakins, Fuller, Homer, and Inness. In A Collection in the Making, Phillips wrote:

“Miss Woakes,” however, is not a mere pretext for a color scheme, and not a Japanese conception of the figure as an arabesque, nor a graceful form enveloped in shadowy air. She is a robust blooming English girl in whose vitality and subtle spirit the artist seems to have forgotten himself, striving only for the plastic "presence"and for an expression of the "eternal feminine" '. ¹²

Exhibitions

• 1905: 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. 20) as 'Lilian, daughter of E. G. Woakes Esq. M.D.'

There is no record of an exhibition 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. 393), plate 269, as 'Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 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. 20) as 'Lilian, daughter of E. G. Woakes Esq. M.D.'

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907 (cat. no. 380).
• Duret, Théodore, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre, 2nd edition, Paris, 1914, repr. f.p. 146.
• Lane, James W., Whistler, (American Artists Series), New York, 1942, p. 65.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., 'James McNeill Whistler', in: Andreeva, Galina and Margaret F. MacDonald (eds), Whistler and Russia, Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 16-57, at p. 43, repr. p. 43.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911, p. 213.
• Pousette-Dart, Nathaniel, (ed.), James McNeill Whistler,(with introduction by Joseph & Elizabeth Robins Pennell), New York, 1924, repr.

Books, General

• Phillips, Duncan, A Collection in the Making, New York, 1926, p. 111.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Opening exhibition, Henry Reinhardt Gallery, New York, 1911.
• The Seventh Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, 1912.
• Oils, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings by J. McN. Whistler, Knoedler & Co., New York, 1914 (cat. no. 3) as 'Miss Lilian Wookes' [sic].
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 94).
• Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, p. 42, 183 (cat. no. 20), repr. p. 42.

Journals 1906-Present

• 'Reinhardt Gallery Opens', American Art News, vol. 10, no. 7, 25 November 1911, p. 4.
• Anon., 'The Seventh Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists', Academy Notes, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, vol. 7, July 1912, pp. 47-52, 54, repr. p. 54.
• International Studio, 1912, repr. p. lxxv.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• The Evening Mail, New York, 4 April 1914.
• New York Times, New York, 5 April 1914.
• New York American, New York, 6 April 1914.

Websites

• Phillips Collection website at http://www.phillipscollection.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 195).

Other

• None.