The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat, The Hunterian

Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat dates from between 1890 and 1891. ¹

Gants de suede, lithograph, 1890 (C35) The Hunterian, GLAHA 49038

1890: Whistler drew a lithograph of Ethel Whibley (1861-1920) called Gants de suède c035, which was published in the Studio in 1890. It is a three-quarter length portrait showing Ethel in a very similar costume and pose to this painting. ²

1891: Théodore Duret (1838-1927) saw a portrait in an unfinished state in Whistler's London studio, which may have been Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat, Red and Black: The Fan y388 or Mother of Pearl and Silver: The Andalusian y378. ³

1890/1892: It may also have been one of the portraits the German art historian Richard Muther (1860-1909) saw on a visit to Whistler's studio before 1893, but his account is not dated. ⁴

1901: On 3 November Whistler wrote that he had discovered a portrait of Ethel (whom he called 'Bunnie') which he thought worth completing (possibly this or Harmony in Black: Portrait of Miss Ethel Philip y419): 'Bunnie you know how much I think of all you are doing! ... I will tell you when I see you - & mean while I have found a very pretty picture of you! you must come & see if something may not be done!' ⁵

Images

Subject

Titles

Whistler's own title is not known. Only one title has been recorded:

• 'Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat' (1936, Glasgow University). ⁶
• 'Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

Description

Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat, The Hunterian

A full-length portrait of a woman, in vertical format. She stands turned to the left, with her face tilted, looking up to right. She holds a pair of gloves in her hands. The gloves look rather like a fan or catalogue, but Whistler described her as holding 'a pair of gloves drawn out in the two hands' in a related lithograph, Gants de suède c035. ⁸ She wears a close-fitting pale brown dress with a deep pleat running the full-length of the skirt front. The narrow sleeves are dark brown, as is a scarf or tippet around her neck, and the sharply tilted felt hat. The floor is a light brownish ochre, darkening to very dark brown in the background.

Sitter

Ethel Philip (Mrs Whibley), photograph, 1892/1901

Ethel Whibley (1861-1920), née Birnie Philip, was one of the sisters of Whistler's wife. She was referred to by Whistler as 'Bunnie'. This is one of a number of portraits of her, including the lithograph Gants de suède c035, showing Ethel in a similar costume and pose to this painting.

Whistler, Women and Fashion noted: 'The somber, rather masculine dress and hat strike an important chord regarding women's dress of the 1890s – the increased fashion for simplicity,' and commented on Ethel's taste for feathered hats: 'Ethel Philip appears ... in a range of plumed hats, which looked well on her strong oval face with its clean-cut profile.' ⁹

Comments

Muther described Whistler in his studio, in an interesting – if romanticized – account, dating probably from the early 1890s:

'Whistler seemed like a hermit in his secluded house, like the monarch of a far kingdom, peopled only with his own thoughts – a realm where he reigned in the midst of mysterious landscapes and grave and quiet men and women, who have stood near him in mind and spirit, and to whom his brush gave new life. The thoughtful eyes of women gazed upon you; fair hair, black and grey furs, pale, fading flowers, and grey felt hats with black feathers stood out from dusty canvases placed carelessly to one side, sometimes taking definite form, sometimes melting intangibly and indistinctly, as if seen through silky veils. The air which enveloped them was at the same time bright and dark; the atmosphere of this silent room, in which the artist saw his models, had a subdued and shrouded daylight, and old light, as it were, which had become harmonious like a faded Gobelin.' ¹⁰

The 1995 Tate exhibition catalogue warned:

'We must be very careful about attributing to an unfinished painting qualities Whistler never intended it to have. Nevertheless, the way in which the elongated figure seems to emerge, wraith-like, from the shadowy background, the absence of details and textures, and above all the tendency to flatten form against a spatially ambiguous background: all put one in mind of the Symbolist art nouveau paintings of Gustav Klimt. It is therefore worth noting that on 13 December 1897 Klimt wrote to Whistler inviting him to accept honorary membership in the Society of Austrian Artists Secession.' ¹¹

Technique

Composition

Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat, The Hunterian

Gants de suede, lithograph, 1890 (c35) The Hunterian, GLAHA 49038

Whistler drew a lithograph of Ethel Whibley (1861-1920), called Gants de suède c035, which was published in the Studio. It is a three-quarter length portrait showing Ethel in a similar costume and pose to this painting.

Technique

Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat, The Hunterian, GLAHA 46387

The canvas is a coarse plain open weave, lined with a more closely woven canvas. It is thinly painted and parts have been rubbed down. The hands are almost entirely wiped away, although she may originally have held a pair of gloves. These gloves, and her left hand, were originally higher. The butterfly signature is barely visible, on the right, just below the middle of the canvas.

Conservation History

Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat, photo, 1980

Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat, The Hunterian

The canvas shows signs of having been rolled or folded at some time (there are four horizontal marks, possibly folds, across the canvas) and as a result there are areas of fracture and paint loss, which have been retouched, possibly by Whistler or by a later hand.

It is possible that it was relined in Whistler's time, or later, to repair damage.

Following some damage in 1971 it was cleaned, repaired, retouched and revarnished by Harry Woolford in 1972. ¹²

Frame

203.2 x 102.7 x 7.0 cm.

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1958: bequeathed by Miss R. Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.

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. 395), plate 248, as 'Harmony in Brown: The Felt Hat'.
• Spink, Nesta R., Harriet K. Stratis, and Martha Tedeschi, The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, (gen. eds, Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi), 2 vols., Chicago, 1998 (cat. no. 35).

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 41, 193.

Books, General

• McConkey, Kenneth, Edwardian Portraits. Images of an Age of Opulence, Woodbridge, 1987, pp. 138-39, repr. pl. 37.
• Muther, Richard Geschichte der Malerei im XIX Jahrhundert, 3 vols, Munich, 1893-1894 ('Whistler und die Schotten', vol. 3, chap. 48, pp. 522-37), at pp. 525-26.
• Muther, Richard, The History of Modern Painting, 3 vols, London and New York, 1895-1896, chapter 38, pp. 3-4.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• McNamara, Carol, and John Siewert, Whistler: Prosaic Views, Poetic Vision, exhibition catalogue, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1996, p. 141, fig. 59a (not exhibited).
• 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. 23).
• Dorment, Richard, and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1994-1995 (cat. no. 198).
• Rolfe, Julia R., The Portrait of a Lady. Sargent and Lady Agnew, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1997 (cat. no. 42).
• Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 42, 56, 74, 183-84 (cat. no. 21), repr. p. 74.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/41293.
• Art Uk website at Artuk.org.

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 207).