The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt possibly dates from 1893. ¹

According to Walford Graham Robertson (1867-1948):

'Once, during a visit to Paris, Whistler had begun a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, but I fancy it went little beyond the first sitting: Sarah had arrived late, had failed to keep appointments, and had been unable or unwilling to give the artist the allegiance that he required from a sitter. On his return he was talking over the incident with me when suddenly he paused. "By the by," he said, "someone told me that you had asked her not to sit to me - had said that it would not be worth her while ... Of course I knew you hadn't."' ²

The artist and collector Graham Robertson met Whistler in 1890 when he bought Crepuscule in Flesh Colour and Green: Valparaiso y073 and Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder y203. Whistler visited Paris frequently from 1890 on. Bernhardt was on tour in America in 1891 and Europe in 1892 and was back for an immensely successful season in Paris in 1893 as producer, director and star of the Théâtre de la Renaissance. The portrait could have been painted then but there is no other record of it.

Images

Subject

Titles

The only suggested title is:

• 'Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt' (1980, YMSM). ³

Description

A portrait of a woman.

Sitter

Sarah Bernhardt, photograph, 1890s

Sara Bernhardt (1844-1923), the famous actress of the Comédie Francaise and the Odeon, and a theatrical manager, founded the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris in 1899. She was also a painter and sculptress. Among the many portraits of her, a splendid profile portrait by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), in a private collection, dates from 1879.

Sarah Bernhardt, Revue Illustrée, vol. 10, 1890, p. 316

A romantic study by G. Clairin showing Bernhardt in the role of Cleopatra, reproduced above, appeared in the Revue Illustrée in 1890. Around 1892 to 1893 she was very well-known. The Australian sculptor Bertram Mackenna (1863-1931) did a low relief bust, probably while he was in Paris. Franz von Lenbach (1836-1904) painted her as Lady Macbeth in 1892. ⁴ A melodramatic lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) shows her on stage in the Théâtre de la Renaissance, of which she became director in 1893: At the Renaissance: Sarah Bernhardt in "Phedre" (A la Renaissance: Sarah Bernhardt dans "Phèdre"), 1893. ⁵

No drawing or painting of her by Whistler has been identified, although they certainly had met.

Maud Franklin, The Hunterian

A chalk drawing by Whistler that belonged at one time to Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was inscribed by Sarah Bernhardt; this was r.: Maud Franklin; v.: Study of Maud Franklin m0693, drawn by Whistler in the late 1870s, and is certainly not of Bernhardt, although she wrote on it that it was very like her!

Technique

Technique

Unknown.

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

Unknown.

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. 399) as 'Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• None.

Books, General

• Robertson, W. Graham, Time Was: the Reminiscences of W. Graham Robertson, London and New York, 1931, p. 197.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• None.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• None.

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• None.