The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 394
Head of a Young Woman
Date
Head of a Young Woman probably dates from the 1890s. 1
Head of a Young Woman, Smithsonian American Art Museum
According to a later owner, G. W. Eccles, it was bought by Mme Katharine Ruetz Jussen from Goupil, London dealers, in the early 1880s. However, this clashes with the apparent date of the portrait, suggested by the technique. It is difficult to date and may have been worked on by another hand.
Images
Head of a Young Woman, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Head of a Young Woman, photograph, 1980
Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes, Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington, DC
Subject
Titles
The generally accepted title is:
- 'Head of a Young Woman' (1980, YMSM).
Description
Head of a Young Woman, Smithsonian American Art Museum
A head and shoulders portrait of a woman with very dark curly hair, cut in a fringe, painted in vertical format. She gazes directly at the viewer. She wears a grey dress with a white collar trimmed with lace.
Sitter
The sitter was called 'Leonori' by Joseph Pennell (1860-1926), according to Sir David McAdam Eccles (1904-1999). 2
It has been suggested that 'Leonori' was a misspelling of Lenoir, although that seems unlikely. Helen Lenoir (1852-1913) (later Mrs R. D'Oyly Carte) knew Whistler well in the 1880s, helped to organise his 'Ten O'Clock' lecture and lent him money, but neither in her correspondence with Whistler nor in a letter from her to Pennell, does she mention ever being painted. 3 About 1887/1888 Whistler made an etching of her, The Fur Tippet: Miss Lenoir [365], in which her features appear longer than those in this oil portrait, and her hair much less bushy, with a shorter fringe.
Head of a Young Woman, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes, Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington, DC
The sitter has some resemblance to Lilian Woakes (1866-1843) as seen in Portrait of Miss Lilian Woakes y393, although the dress is totally different. However, this may be due to the fashionable look of the day or to Whistler's tendency to see certain characteristics in his models.
Technique
Technique
Head of a Young Woman, Smithsonian American Art Museum
The fine weave canvas is approximately the size of the French 'toile de 8' (46 x 38cm) and may have been acquired in Paris. The paint is (for Whistler) fairly thick and heavily worked.
The technique is not totally consistent with Whistler's work.
Conservation History
Head of a Young Woman, photograph, 1980
Head of a Young Woman, Smithsonian American Art Museum
It is on canvas mounted on wood.
An earlier photograph shows it as much less cracked and abraded – particularly at upper right – than it appears in the colour photograph: this may have been due to the lighting and/or varnishing or other treatment of the picture.
Smithsonian American Art Museum records state that old varnish was removed, the painting was cleaned, inpainted as required, and varnished by Henri G. Courtais, New York, in 1962-1963. 4
Frame
The painting was reframed and the frame was gilded in 1962.
History
Provenance
- ca 1890: said to have been bought from Goupil, London art dealers, by 'Mme Katharine Ruetz Jussen', possibly Mrs Jussen, née Elizabeth Catarina Hubertina Barbara Ruetz (1811-1891);
- 1892: said to have passed after her death to her brother, Senor Ruetz, Spain;
- By 1928: bought from his heirs by Sir David McAdam Eccles (1904-1999), Long Island, NY;
- 1928: sold by Eccles to De Hauk & Co., New York;
- 1928: bought from them by the Macbeth Galleries, New York;
- 1928: sold by them through E. & A. Milch, New York, to John Gellatly (1853-1931), Wenatchee, Washington;
- 1929: acquired by the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
The early provenance is not clear. The painting itself may date from about 1890, although according to a later owner, G. W. Eccles, it was bought by "Mme Katharine Ruetz Jussen" from Goupil, London dealers, in the early 1880s, and passed in 1892 (after her death) to her brother, Senor Ruetz, a Spanish iron-founder, from whose heirs it was bought by G. W. Eccles. It was sold by Eccles to De Hauk & Co., New York, 1928. 5
Mme Jussen may have been Elizabeth Catarina Hubertina Barbara Ruetz, daughter of Johann Heinrich Ruetz and Petronella Irmgard Siegerborn, born in Germany on 29 May 1811. She emigrated to America in 1848, and married first Jakob Jussen, and secondly E. C. Gaebler. She died on 16 April 1891 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although there is no record of her having a brother, the family was quite widespread, and it is possible the painting went to another relative.
According to the Macbeth Galleries' records, it was bought from De Hauk & Co. by the Macbeth Galleries and sold through E. & A. Milch, New York, to J. A. Gellatly in 1928 for $18,000, whence it was acquired by the National Collection of Fine Arts in the following year.
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. 394), plate 247, as 'Head of a Young Woman'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- None.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
Monographs
- None.
Books on Whistler
- None.
Books, General
- None.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- ホイスラー展. Whistler Exhibition in Japan, Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo; Shizuoka Prefectural Museum, Shizuoka, 1986 (cat. no. 22, repr).
Websites
- Smithsonian American Art Museum website at http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=27607.
Unpublished
- None.
Other
- Smithsonian Institution Annual Report, Washington DC, 1963, p. 188.
Notes:
1: Dated 'about 1890' in YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 394).
2: Letter in GUL WPP files.
3: Lenoir to J. Pennell, 3 March 1905, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress.
4: Smithsonian Institution Annual Report, 1963, p. 188.
5: Eccles to De Hauk, 28 April 1928, copy, GUL WPP.