The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac was painted from 1891 to 1892. ¹

1891: The sitter, Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921), commissioned his portrait in a lengthy convoluted letter in February 1891.

'Depuis quand veux-je rouvrir la communication, pourtant pas tout à fait fermée, puisqu'elle a laissé filtrer à mon adresse, et mon endroit de si spécieux croquis dédicacés ...

Non ce qui m'amènerait plutôt vers vous c'est faire un pas vers votre palette. C'est voir et savoir et avoir et savourer de quoi il retourne à cet endroit sensible où pendent, avec les curiosités des nations présentes, et l'ébaudissement des époques futures, le corollaire graphique, le témoignage figuratif indispensable & unique, et le commentaire consacrant de ce que j'ai l'intention de laisser de gloire! - avec aussi un petit intérêt pour vous je pense.

Des amis bien intentionnés et assez pythiques, ont eu le sens clairvoyant et intime d'attirer encore récemment sur ce point prestigieux mon attention, qui y était déjà théoriquement fixée, mais à quand la pratique, la mise en oeuvre, et en chef d'œuvre, en toile, et en cadre? en bouteille aussi et enfin, puisque quand le vin est tiré, il faut le boire. ...

Certes ni vous, ni moi ne doutons de poser ni de peindre; mais enfin nous n'en sommes pas moins dans cette seule sécurité néfastement sommeillante, en train de nous endormir, vous, sur vos lauriers, moi sur mon rôti!

Ainsi et plus éloquemment et élogieusement raisonnèrent raisonnablement les voix amies qui me délogèrent de mon expectance et mon espérance fatalistes - et me firent compter quelques écus! A présent je thésaurise ... vous m'arrêterez!

Je propose - disposez!' ²

A rough translation of this extraordinarily flowery and obscure letter reads as follows:

'For a long time I have wanted to re-open communications, not however quite closed, since there have filtered through to my address, and my corner, some especial, signed, delicate - and very precious - sketches. ...

No, what would bring me to you is more to take a step towards your palette. It is to see and to know and to have and savour from what it returns to this sensitive place where hangs, with those curiosities of present nations, and the rejoicing of future epochs, the graphic corollary, the indispensable and unique figurative evidence, and the consecrating commentary on what glory I mean to leave after me! - with a little interest for you also I think.

Some well-intentioned and fairly Pythian friends, have had the clairvoyant and intimate sense to attract my attention again more recently on this point, which was already theoretically fixed thereon, but when to practice, implement, the masterpiece, on canvas, and in frame? and finally bottled, because when the wine is poured, it must be drunk. ...

Certainly neither you, nor I have doubts about either posing or painting; but we are nonetheless no less in this only dormant security, in the process of going to sleep, you, on your laurels, me, on my roast!

Therefore and more eloquently and favourably reasoned reasonably the friendly voices that dislodged me from my expectancy and fatalistic hope - and made me count a few pennies! At present I hoard … you will stop me!

I propose - you dispose!'

Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, photograph, GUL PH1/22

On 16 March Montesquiou's great friend Elisabeth, Comtesse Greffulhe (1860-1952) advised Whistler on the pose suitable for the proposed portrait!

'Il faut que cette vision unique soit - unique -

Soyez long à choisir la pose.

Devant un être aussi multiple n'a-t-on pas à lutter contre mille tentations -

Il est, entre toutes, une expression qu'il faut saisir et qui est celle où sa personnalité se révèle et où son expressivité est conforme à son être intérieur.

Il faut se garder d'être trop vite séduit par l'extrême élégance de sa race -

Je tremblerais de voir un "Robert de Montesquiou" "chic jeune homme de la fin du XIX siècle" (qu'il sait être aussi) -

Vous voudrez le regard: et vous aurez raison! -

Je voudrais le profil et j'aurais raison! - Le "très beau profil" sculpté par Michel-Ange avec l'intensité de l'oeil qui voit et qui pense, - contrairement à ceux qui regardent sans voir, et qui, surtout, n'ont jamais pensé.' ³

Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, photograph, GUL PH1/21

Translation: 'This unique vision must be - unique -

Take a long time to choose the pose.

In front of so many-faceted a being does one not have to struggle against a thousand temptations -

There is, within everything, an expression one has to seize that is the one where one's personality is revealed and where one's expressiveness conforms to one's interior being.

You should guard against being too quickly seduced by the extreme elegance of his race -

I would tremble to see a "Robert de Montesquiou" "smart young man of the end of the 19th century" (which he also knows how to be) -

You will want the face and you will be right!

I would want the profile and I would be right! - The "very beautiful profile" sculpted by Michelangelo with the intensity of the eye which sees and thinks, - contrary to those who look without seeing, and who, above all, have never thought.'

Whistler told Montesquiou to come over to London:

'tout est préparé, comme vous voyez, pour notre chef d'oeuvre! - et cette fois-ci c'est sérieux - même je n'ose guère en parler! - ainsi soyez bien pret a séjourner dans ce pays à climat tranquille! jusqu'à la fin de notre grande entreprise!' ⁴ (Translation: 'all is prepared, as you see, for our masterpiece! - and this time - this is serious, I hardly even dare to talk about it! - so be ready to sojourn in this country with its peaceful climate! until the end of our grand enterprise!')

In early May, the 'Black Lord' was in progress in London, but sittings were interrupted when Whistler caught 'flu. ⁵ In June Montesquiou begged Whistler not to show anyone 'd'aucun de nos prestigieux complots (et prodigieux!) de toiles' ('any of our prestigious (and prodigious!) plots of canvasses'). ⁶

According to Montesquiou (quoted by Goncourt) on 7 July 1891:

'Whistler est en train de faire deux portraits de lui: l'un en habit noir avec une fourrure sous le bras, l'autre en grand manteau gris, au col relevé, avec, au cou, un rien d'une cravate d'une nuance, d'une nuance ... qu'il ne dit pas, mais dont son oeil exprime la couleur idéale.' ⁷

Translation: 'Whistler is in the process of painting two portraits of him: one dressed in black with a fur under the arm, the other in a big grey coat, collar upturned, with, at the neck, a nothing of a cravat of a shade, a shade ... that he does not describe, but his eye expresses the colour perfectly.'

The two portraits were Impressions de gris perle: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac y397, and Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac y398.

In October, more sittings were planned, as Whistler wrote to Montesquiou, 'Je viens de retourner le tableau qui nous implore de le finir! - Mais les quelques jours nécessaire doivent être tout à fait sans ennuis - sans préocupations.' ('I have just returned the picture which implores us to finish it! But the few days necessary must be entirely without problems - without worries.') ⁸ According to Montesquiou, he was posing in London on 21 November 1891. ⁹

On 24 November Whistler told Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), in confidence, that he was at work on the portrait:

'Vous savez que Montesquiou est içi - et je travaille tous les jours jusqu'à la nuit au portrait - de sorte que je manque chaque soir mon courier - Vous savez ceci est absoluement entre nous - et vous ne direz rien à personne a propos de ce nouveau tableau n'est ce pas!' ¹⁰

On 27 November 1891 Saint-Charles wrote that the portrait was not finished. ¹¹ In December Whistler showed it to Claude Oscar Monet (1840-1926). ¹² Montesquiou left London, also in December, but Whistler refused to let him pay before the portrait was completed. ¹³

1892: Montesquiou arranged that Whistler should borrow part of the studio owned by the artist Antonio de la Gandara (1862-1917) at 22 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, while his tenant, the artist Joseph-Félix Bouchor (1853-1937), was absent, from mid-January to early February 1892. ¹⁴ Whistler wrote to his wife, Beatrice, on 24 January 1892 that on his first afternoon in Paris, on Wednesday, he had a sitting from Montesquiou and on the Thursday he did some 'tinkering on the hand' without success, but further sittings would be delayed for a week since Bouchor was spending some time in his studio, but, when they recommenced, Whistler thought 'I ought really to manage it in three or four days if I don't get demoralized!' ¹⁵ Soon afterwards he wrote that his trip to Paris had dragged on too long, 'all because of this great black work that still is there - an eternal terror and reproach until it is done!' but, he added, the studio was splendid and 'After Friday I am to have clear work without further interruption.' ¹⁶ He wrote that Antonio de la Gandara (1862-1917) had stood in for Montesquiou one morning:

'Gandara is an excellent fellow ... I got him this morning to come and stand for me before the arrival of the Count!! - He brought his dress clothes and I put in the whole of the background and the tone of the figure - then he bolted and at about one o'clock Montesquiou appeared, and I put him in his place and went right on without his dreaming that other mortal had desecrated the atmosphere of the "respectueux" so necessary to his existence! - ... However after all as he explained to me this evening ... de La Gandara is "of race" - born in short - so that after all everything was saved! -

The picture tonight looked superb! But then you know the next day is what I dread always.' ¹⁷

At some time Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) also stood in for the Count, wearing Montesquiou's coat. ¹⁸

Montesquiou brought Marie Louise Hortense Madeleine de Montebello (1853-1930) to see the supposedly completed portrait, as Whistler reported to his wife:

'I was not displeased that he should do so, for the whole picture had not yet sunk in - and the back ground and figure all went beautifully together - Chinkie I wish you could have seen the two in front of the work! - They were splendid! - these two amazing ones - all "respectueux", and absolutely without a doubt! - a sort of unveiling in Olympus - or last tableau in a very superior pantomime!

Montesquiou was of course simply heroic - "triste et noble" - and childlike in his joy ... And certainly in the flattering light of the evening our Montesquiou poète et grand seigneur did look stupendious [sic]!' ¹⁹

Whistler may have worked on the portrait in the summer. ²⁰ Montesquiou, presumably thinking the portrait finished, in gratitude sent the Whistlers an Empire bed (now in the Victoria & Albert Museum). Whistler thanked him effusively for 'le splendide cadeau du beau lit Empire' but proposed further sittings, 'bien comme vous le dites, "soixante scéances" c'est beaucoup, mais ce n'est pas assez! ainsi mon cher ami, à notre prochaine rentrée!' ²¹

According to Duret, Montesquiou had posed in Whistler's studio in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. ²²

Montesquiou said that: 'Les toutes dernières séances ne sont pas loin de se comporter de même pour obtenir ce que le Maître appelle "l'air aisé de la chose" ', and that he posed over one hundred times before it was finished. ²³

1894: It was shown at Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ de Mars, Paris, 1894 (cat. no. 1186) as 'Noir er or; – portrait du comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac'.

The Pennells claimed that either Impressions de gris perle: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac y397 or Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac y398 was among portraits seen by Alan S. Cole in Whistler's studio on 24 September 1890 but this is impossible. ²⁴ They add that it was Whistler's fourth portrait of a man in evening dress (these being Arrangement in Black: Portrait of F. R. Leyland y097, Arrangement en couleur chair et noir: Portrait de Théodore Duret y252, and Arrangement in Black: Portrait of Señor Pablo de Sarasate y315).

Images

Subject

Titles

Several serious and some fanciful variations on the title have been suggested:

• 'Black Lord' (1891, Beatrice Whistler). ²⁵
• 'd'Artagnan' (1892, Whistler). ²⁶
• 'Noir er or; – portrait du comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac' (1894, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts). ²⁷
• 'le vrai Dartagnan ... le Chevalier Noir' (1894, Whistler). ²⁸
• 'Arrangement in Black and Gold "Le Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac" ' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ²⁹
• 'Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac' (1980, YMSM). ³⁰

'Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac' is the preferred title.

Description

Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, The Frick Collection

A full-length portrait of a man in black holding in his left hand a fur cloak, and in his grey-gloved right hand, a slender walking stick. He has narrow features, brown eyes and dark hair, with a moustache twirled up at the ends. He stands in three-quarter view to right. The background is also black. The canvas is in vertical format.

Sitter

Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, photograph, GUL PH1/21

Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, photograph, GUL PH1/22

Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921).

The chinchilla-lined cloak that Montesquiou carried over his arm was lent for the sittings by his cousin and muse, Elisabeth, Comtesse Greffulhe (1860-1952). According to W. Graham Robertson, Montesquiou 'was not strong and he told me himself that the weight of the heavy fur coat over his arm tired him very much when he was posing'. Robertson criticized the portrait: 'It gives no idea of Robert's beauty of feature and dignity of bearing', and he added, 'The head is nothing ... And the pose is limp ... giving no hint of Robert's nervous alertness.' ³¹

Whistler told his wife of Montesquiou's reaction to the portrait:

'Montesquiou was of course simply heroic - "triste et noble" - and childlike in his joy - It really was without precedent in my experience - for expression of such sympathy is unknown to me hitherto and impossible in England ... they gloried in the picture as an apotheosis of themselves, their birth their "race"! - "It is the sense of pride" said the Count, "unstained with vanity"!!! - "C'est noble" said the grande dame with a sort of religious intonation - and there they were really worshipping before a sort of monument of their blue blood! ... I dare scarcely believe that the picture can be as superbe as in the gloaming it looked ... there is no doubt that Madame de Montebello looked at the portrait in its highest sense of achievement ... simply a supreme acceptation of the whole as the highest possible incarnation of all that is beautiful and dignified and magnificent ... And certainly in the flattering light of the evening our Montesquiou poète et grand seigneur did look stupendious [sic]!' ³²

Saint-Cère, in an article on Montesquiou published shortly after the portrait was completed for the Salon, recorded the aristocratic Montesquiou as supremely snobbish, and commented on the way in which Whistler's portrait caught the count's unique concept of style:

'M. de Montesquiou est maintenant dans la force de l'âge et l'on n'a qu'à regarder le portrait si évocateur de Whistler pour comprendre qu'il apporte dans la vie tous les préjugés de sa race et tout le désir de ne pas être confondu avec la masse ... Et, cependant, ... il faut bien ressembler aux autres: M. de Montesquiou, tout en portant le costume extérieur de notre temps, ... le col qui ressemble à celui d'un ministre de M. Cassimir-Perier, en est réduit à se distinguer de vous, de nous, par le détail. C'est ce gant gris qui, dans le portrait de Whistler, rappelle les grands seigneurs de la Cour d'Espagne, c'est le jonc posé en avant, provocateur comme une épée de cour prète à se relever pour le duel s'il le fallait; c'est l'oeuil surtout, perçant, aigu et cependant qui ne se pose que légèrement sur les hommes et les choses, comme s'il trouvait inutile de regarder trop longtemps.' ³³

The count was also painted in a grey cloak by Whistler, and his account of the sittings was reported by Goncourt (see Impressions de gris perle: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac y397).

J. Whistler, Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, No. 2, lithograph, The Hunterian

A lithographic copy, Count Robert de Montesquiou, No. 2 c084, of Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac y398 was made by Whistler.

B. Whistler, Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, lithograph, The Hunterian

B. Whistler, Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, lithograph, The Hunterian

Two more copies of the portrait, made by his wife, Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896), were listed as by Whistler in earlier catalogues, but identified correctly in the catalogue by Spink et al. ³⁴

Comments

The Frick website comments:

'The painting’s extreme simplicity and somber palette recall the full-length portraits of Velázquez and anticipate certain minimalist tendencies of twentieth-century abstraction, yet its mediumistic character – many contemporaries described it as being like an apparition – relates it to symbolist currents of the 1890s. Whistler's desire to capture the soul of Montesquiou is suggested by his final words to the exhausted model: “Look at me for an instant longer, and you will look forever!” ' ³⁵

Technique

Technique

Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, The Frick Collection

It was painted on a fine weave canvas. In spite of the record number of sittings, the paint is quite thin, and there are few signs of major alterations to this portrait. His right leg was originally further left and his foot lower and to the left. Because the finely woven canvas was rubbed down between sittings, the surface, while worked over in considerable detail, is thinly painted, except for the outline of Montesquiou's shoulders, his white shirt front, and some of the modelling and colour accents on his face.

Montesquiou described Whistler at work :

" 'Tout ça bourdonne là-dessous, la toile n'est pas encore contente ..."clamait-il, en lançant les "that is it!" ... dont il accélérait son travail, aux premières séances comme frénétiques et durant lesquelles il se comporte à la facon d'un chat tigre dont on viendrait d'ouvrir la cage, au point qu'il faut, alors, enlever les meubles pour empêcher le peintre de les renverser en bondissant, lorsqu'il se recule, on dirait pour puiser une touche dans l'essence même du modèle, et la reporter sur la toile sans lui laisser le temps de s'évaporer ou s'évanouir.' ³⁶

Translated freely: 'All this buzzing about, the canvas is not happy ... he said, crying out the "that is it!" ... with which he speeded up his work, so frenetic in the first sessions, during which he behaves like a tiger cat when the cage is opened, so that it is necessary to remove the furniture to stop the painter from upsetting it when he jumps back, he seems to extract, with a touch, the very essence of the model, and to place it on the canvas without giving it time to evaporate or faint.'

Montesquiou also commented on 'cette curieuse façon de retarder, de balancer la-dite touche, de la promener dans l'air de longs instants avant de la poser à la place precise où le travail la réclamait, pour s'approcher davantage de la palpitation, de la respiration et de la vie.' ³⁷

On 24 January 1892 Whistler wrote to his wife, Beatrice, that on his first afternoon in Paris, on Wednesday, he had a sitting from Montesquiou and did 'a great deal of good to the head', on that on Thursday he did some 'tinkering on the hand' without success:

'whereupon I made up my mind that I would not touch the background and figure until afterwards - for I was determined to go through with the whole picture in one perfect final coating - for which I had been enabled to prepare the canvass with one last scraping, and pommice stoning and washing and the terrible bag of tricks that we know only too well!' ³⁸

Conservation History

Frame

Memorial Exhibition, Boston, 1904, photograph, GUL Whistler PH6/27

Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, The Frick Collection

Flat Whistler frame, signed 'F H Grau - London, 1892' [14 cm], 92 1/4 x 46 1/4 x 2 1/8". The maker was Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892). ³⁹

History

Provenance

• 1891: commissioned by Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921), Paris;
• 1894: delivered to the sitter;
• 1901: sold through Arnold Seligmann (1870-1932), Paris art dealer, to Richard Albert Canfield (1855-1914), Providence, RI;
• 1914: bought by Knoedler's, New York dealers, 12 March 1914 (a/c # 13428);
• 1914: sold by Knoedler's to Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), New York;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Frick Collection.

In 1901 Montesquiou refused 50,000 francs for the portrait, but he had sold it by 14 December 1902 through Seligmann to the gambler (and collector) R. A. Canfield (whom Whistler described as 'the noble American') for 60,000 francs. ⁴⁰

Whistler was deeply hurt when he heard that Montesquiou had sold his portrait and wrote bitterly to him:

'Bravo Montesquiou! -

et les belles parolles, et le legs au Musée du Louvre ont du céder aux Dollars Americains! -

"Nécessité Noblesse oblige!" -

et le portrait acquis en Poète, pour une chanson, est revendu en juif de la rue Lafitte, pour dix fois cet air là!' ⁴¹

That is, 'the portrait which you acquired as a poet, for a song, is resold ... for ten times that song!' To which Montesquiou replied that he had been unable to contact Whistler: 'C'est alors que j'ai cru pouvoir prendre une décision qui semblait assurer dignement l'avenir d'une très noble oeuvre d'art, en même temps que se concilier avec le respect dû à votre haute renommée.' ('This is why I believed I could take a decision that seemed to assure fittingly the future of a very noble work of art, whilst gaining the respect due to your high reputation.') ⁴²

The portrait was sent to Whistler's studio, possibly with the idea of cleaning or touching it up, and from there, after Whistler's death, his sister-in-law R. Birnie Philip had it sent to the London dealer W. Marchant for delivery to Canfield. ⁴³

Exhibitions

• Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ de Mars, Paris, 1894 (cat. no. 1186) as 'Noir er or; - portrait du comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 39) as 'Arrangement in Black and Gold "Le Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac".'

It was well received in 1894. The Magazine of Art asserted that it was 'certainly the most remarkable oil-painting produced by [Whistler] of late years.' ⁴⁴ Gustave Geffroy (1855-1926) in La Justice, 25 April 1894 called the portrait an enigma, a masterpiece, a painting worthy of a museum:

'C'est Whistler qui a été le portraitiste de ce raffiné, et rarement plus parfait accord fut réalisé entre un peintre et son modèle. L'artiste des Nocturnes et des Harmonies, l'auteur de si beaux portraits silencieux, l'évocateur d'apparitions féminines et d'expressions intellectuelles, devait être tenté, étant donné le dandysme qui est en lui, par le dandysme de M. de Montesquiou. ...

Le mélange de lumière et d'ombre enveloppe la silhouette, éclaire l'habit, voile la blancheur du gant ... C'est un singulier mélange, délicatement dosé de hardiesse et de finesse, d'ironie et de mélancolie. D'ailleurs, il en est de ce portrait comme de tous les beaux portraits. Il contient une somme d'énigme qui donnera sans cesse à rêver au spectateur. Quel est ce passant? où va-t-il? à quoi pense-t-il. Lorsqu'une peinture vous pose ces questions, vous poursuit, vous obsède par la réalité qu'elle affirme et le mystère qu'elle recèle, vous pouvez prévoir son pouvoir certain, la prolongation de sa destinée.'

(A free translation:)

'It was Whistler who was the portraitist of this refined sitter, and rarely has there been a more perfect agreement between a painter and his model. The artist of the Nocturnes and Harmonies, the author of such beautiful silent portraits, the evocation of feminine apparitions and intellectual expressions, was to be tempted, given the dandyism which is in him, by the dandyism of M. de Montesquiou.

The mixture of light and shadow envelops the silhouette, illuminates the dress, veils the whiteness of the glove ... It is a singular mixture, a delicate combination of boldness and finesse, irony and melancholy. Besides, this portrait is like all beautiful portraits. It contains an element of enigma that makes the spectator dream. Who is this passer-by? where is he going? what is he thinking? When a painting asks you these questions, pursues you, obsesses you with the reality it affirms and the mystery it conceals, you can foresee its absolute power, the prolongation of its destiny.'

J. Whistler, Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, lithograph

Whistler was asked by David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) to make a lithograph of it for the Art Journal, and sent his sketch to Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) on 6 July 1894, but was dissatisfied with the result. ⁴⁵ He described his own lithograph as 'damnable ... and no more like the superb original than if it had been done by my worst and most incompetent enemy!' and it only showed, he said, 'the folly of proposing to produce the same masterpiece twice over!!' ⁴⁶ He told Thomson, 'I was so bored to death with it that I had to give it up ... One cannot produce the same masterpiece twice over!! - I had no inspiration - and not working at a new thing from nature, I found it impossible to copy myself!' ⁴⁷ It was finally 'passed', unenthusiastically, by the artist, for reproduction in the Art Journal. ⁴⁸

B. Whistler, Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, lithograph, The Hunterian

B. Whistler,Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, lithograph, The Hunterian

Two other lithographs of the Montesquiou portrait, reproduced above, were by Whistler's wife Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896). ⁴⁹ Whistler later described them as 'far more beautiful!' than his own. ⁵⁰

Memorial Exhibition, Boston, 1904, photo GUL Whistler PH6/27

The photograph reproduced above shows the painting on exhibition in Boston in 1904.

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. 398), plate 249, as 'Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac'.
• 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. nos. 84-85), pp. 262-67.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ de Mars, Paris, 1894 (cat. no. 1186) as 'Noir er or; – portrait du comte Robert de Montesquiou'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 39) as 'Arrangement in Black and Gold "Le Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac".'

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Saint-Charles, ‘Un tableau de Whistler’, Figaro, Paris, 27 November 1891, quoted by Barbier, Carl P., (ed.), Correspondance Mallarmé-Whistler: Histoire de la grande amitié de leurs dernières années, Paris, 1964, pp. 128-29.
• Geffroy, Gustave, La Justice, Paris, 25 April 1894.
• Anon., 'The Salon of the Champs de Mars', Morning Post, London, 26 April 1894, p. 6.
• Anon., 'The Art of the Day', The Sketch, London, 16 May 1894, pp. 25-27.
• Anon., Penny Illustrated Paper, London, 9 June 1894, p. 4.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Le chef-d'oeuvre de Vistlaire', Punch, London, 26 May 1894, caricature repr. p. 252.
• Saint-Cère, Jacques, 'Une heure chez le Comte Robert de Montesquiou, Revue Illustrée, 1894, pp. 117-24, repr. p. 121.
• Phillips, Claude, 'The Salons: Salon of the Champs de Mars', Magazine of Art, vol. 17, 1894, pp. 379-84, at p. 381.
• Wyzewa, Teodor de, 'Le Salon de 1894: 'La Peinture', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, period 3, vol. 11, June 1894, pp. 449-68; 'La Sculpture', vol. 12, July 1894, pp. 25-42, at p. 42.
• Anon. [= Charles Whibley], 'Art and Mr Whistler', The Art Journal, vol. 46, no. 120, December 1894, pp. 358-60, at p. 358, repr. p. 361.
• Forthuny, Pascal, 'Notes sur James Whistler', Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 30, no. 557, 3rd series, November 1903, pp. 381-91, wood engraving by H. Guerard repr. f.p. 390.

Monographs

• Munhall, Edgar, Whistler and Montesquiou. The Butterfly and the Bat, New York, 1995, pp. 12-13, 58-119.

Books on Whistler

• Barbier, Carl P., (ed.), Correspondance Mallarmé-Whistler: Histoire de la grande amitié de leurs dernières années, Paris, 1964, pp. 124, 128-29, 142, 195.
• Duret, Théodore, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1904, pp. 125-26, 172-73.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., (ed.) Whistler's Mother: An American Icon, Aldershot and Burlington, 2003, p. 71.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 169, 190, 192, 220, repr. fig. 161; jewellery given to B. Whistler, repr. fig. 186.
• Merrill, Linda, With Kindest Regards. The Correspondence of Charles Lang Freer and James McNeill Whistler, 1890-1903, Washington, DC, and London, 1995, p. 212.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 215; vol. 2, pp. 94, 297.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, pp. 270-72.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 174, 175, 457, 510, 529, 641, 699.
• Spalding, Frances, Whistler, Oxford and New York, 1979, pp. 71-72.
• Sutherland, Daniel E., Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake, New Haven and London, 2014, pp. 250, 279, 332.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, p. 45.
• Taylor, Hilary, James McNeill Whistler, London, 1978, p. 128.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 105-06.

Books, General

• Eells, Emily, Proust's Cup of Tea: Homoeroticism and Victorian Culture, Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2002, p. 131.
• Jullian, P., Robert de Montesquiou, Paris, 1965.
• McConkey, Kenneth, Edwardian Portraits: Images of an Age of Opulence, Antique Collectors' Club, 1987, p. 120.
• Montesquiou, Robert de, Les Pas effacés: Mémoires, 3 vols, Paris, 1923, vol. 2, pp. 257, 259-60.
• Munhall, Edgar, Whistler and Montesquiou. The Butterfly and the Bat, New York, 1995, 12-13, 58-119.
• Newton, Joy, La Chauve-Souris et le Papillon. Correspondance Montesquiou-Whistler, Glasgow, 1990.
• Preston, Kerrison (ed.), Letters of W. Graham Robertson, London, 1953, pp. 367-68.
• Ricatte, Robert (ed.), Goncourt, Edmond de & Jules de. Journal. Mémoires de la vie littéraire, 22 vols., Monaco, 1956, vol. 18, pp. 52-53, 187-88; vol. 20, pp. 46, 50.
• Robertson, W. Graham, Time Was: the Reminiscences of W. Graham Robertson, London and New York, 1931, p. 237.
• Ryskamp, Charles, Edgar Munhall, Bernice F. Davidson, Susan Grace Galassi and Nadia Tscherny, Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York, 1996.
• Smith, Logan Pearsall, Unforgotten Years, London, 1938, pp. 186-89.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• The Frick Collection (ed.), Paintings: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German,, vol. 1, Princeton, 1968, pp. 21-25.
• Di Liberto, ‎Richard, Charles Ryskamp, ‎John Bigelow Taylor (eds), Art in the Frick Collection: paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, New York, 1996, pp. 116-17.

EXHIBITION:

• 76th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1907 (cat. no. 126) as 'Count Robert'.
• Anon., 'Superb Collection of Thirty-four Works by James McNeill Whistler', Academy Notes, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, vol. 6, no. 2, April 1911, pp. 33-38 (cat. no. 2).
• Paintings in oil and pastel by James McNeill Whistler, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1910 (cat. no. 32).
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 89-90, 148, 222, repr. fig. 73 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• Munhall, Edgar, ‘Whistler’s Portrait of Robert de Montesquiou’, Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 71, 1968, pp. 231-42.
• McConkey, Kenneth, 'No tampering, no faking, no artifice. Her First Communion by John Lavery', The British Art Journal, vol. 21, no. 1, Spring 2020, pp. 54-59, at p. 55-56.

Websites

• The Frick Collection website at http://collections.frick.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 192).

Other

• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.
• Willsdon, Clare A. P., review of Suzanne Singletary, James McNeill Whistler and France: A Dialogue in Paint, Poetry, and Music, London and New York, 2016, in CAA Reviews, 19 November 2018 at http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/3471#.X50zTIj7SUk.