The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis dates from between October and November 1895 during Whistler's sojourn in Lyme Regis, Dorset. ¹

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

On 2 November 1895 the art dealer David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) thanked Whistler for having shown him 'The Rose':

'The artistic treat of seeing the Royalties of Lyme Regis was one never to be forgotten. The Master Smith, The Rose, The Infanta & the other princess are indelibly impressed on my memory & I cannot too warmly speak of their gorgeous colour, their exquisite style & harmony.' ²

In June 1896 Whistler wrote to Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932), New York dealer, 'I will try and put the few finishing touches on the "Little Rose" without spoiling the picture for you.' ³ However, there is no evidence that he did work on it again.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'The Rose' (1896, D. C. Thomson). ⁴
• 'Little Rose' (1896, Whistler) ⁵
• 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ⁶
• 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis' is the preferred title.

Description

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

A half-length portrait of a girl facing the viewer, in vertical format. Her hands are clasped in her lap. Her long brown hair falls forward over her left ear and is drawn back behind her right ear. She wears a red pinafore over a dark blouse.

Sitter

Rosa Beatrice Rendall (1886-1958), the daughter of George John Rendall (1853-1921), Mayor and Alderman of Lyme Regis. ⁸ She was nine years old. She became a draper's assistant in Exeter, Devon, and in 1914 married Ernest Aubrey Herridge, a gentleman's outfitter, of St Leonards, Exeter. She died in 1958, and her husband died in 1963.

It is possible she also posed to Arthur Haythorne Studd (1863-1919) in Lyme Regis. Studd (whom Whistler called 'Peter') stayed briefly in Lyme Regis while Whistler was there, and Whistler wrote later to his wife:

'You must make Peter show you his things - and then tell me if after all the effect of the studio upon him is not remarkable - Especially look at the head of the little Rosie ... & think of what he had been about, & then tell me if you dreamed such work could have been done by him?' ⁹

Comments

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts website comments:

'He created this beautiful image, one of a series of tonal portraits challenging the sentimentality of Victorian portrayals of children, near the end of his career ... the portrait of eight-year-old Rosie Randall, daughter of the town’s mayor, was not a commission but one of a small group of studies Whistler undertook as a tribute to the children he called “the little Lyme Regis maidens.” Whistler portrays Rosie gazing directly at the viewer, nervously clasping her hands. She wears a red pinafore over a black dress and emerges from a dark background. The artist applied thin layers of paint to create this soft, diffuse likeness, which eloquently captures the innocence and vulnerability of childhood.' ¹⁰

Technique

Technique

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Whistler made few alterations in painting this portrait although the outline of the hair has been changed. The Boston Museum website notes: 'She wears a red pinafore over a black dress and emerges from a dark background. The artist applied thin layers of paint to create this soft, diffuse likeness...' ¹¹

Pennell reported Whistler as saying that in this portrait and The Master Smith of Lyme Regis y450 'he had really solved the problem of carrying on his work as he wished to until it was finished.' ¹²

Conservation History

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis, photograph, 1980

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

The Museum of Fine Arts records it as having been cleaned in 1944 and 1948 and relined and surface cleaned in February 1964.

History

Provenance

• 1896: sold by the artist to H. Wunderlich & Co., New York art dealers;
• 1896: sold by Wunderlich's to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

According to Wunderlich, Whistler agreed with their representative, E. G. Kennedy, to sell them this painting and The Master Smith of Lyme Regis y450 as well as Rose et or: La Tulipe y418 or Harmony in Black: Portrait of Miss Ethel Philip y419 for £1500. ¹³

The Little Rose of Lyme Regis was sold by the Wunderlich Galleries to the Museum of Fine Arts, together with The Master Smith of Lyme Regis y450, for $7,200 (Accession Date: 11 January 1896). Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) of Wunderlich's, who arranged the sale, was gently reprimanded for not having told Whistler. ¹⁴

Exhibitions

• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 43) as 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis'.
• 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. 26) as 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 42) as 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis'.

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. 449), plate 283, as 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 43) as 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis'.
• 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. 26) as 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 42) as 'The Little Rose of Lyme Regis'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Whistler Exhibition', Morning Post, London, 16 January 1905, p. 8.
• Anon., Evening Mail, London, 22 February 1905, p. 6.

• Strange, Edward F., Morning Post, London, 23 February 1905, p. 9.

Journals 1855-1905

• Thomson, David Croal, ‘New Pictures by Mr. Whistler’,Art Journal, January 1897, pp. 10-11, at p. 11, repr. p. 13.
• Thomson, David Croal, ‘Whistler and his London Exhibitions’, Art Journal, April 1905, pp. 107-11, at p. 110.

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, pp. 79-80 (cat. no. 43).
• Duret, Théodore, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1904, wood engraving by A. Prunaire repr. f.p. 182.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, p. 166.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 523, 564-65.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (no. 108).
• Sutherland, Daniel E., Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake, New Haven and London, 2014, pp. 288, 295.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 130.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, p. 110.
• Taylor, Hilary, James McNeill Whistler, London, 1978, p. 153.
• Walker, John, James McNeill Whistler, New York, 1987, p. 130.

Books, General

• Whitehill, Walter Muir, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: a centennial history, vol. 1, 1970, pp. 89-90.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Paintings in oil and pastel by James McNeill Whistler, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1910 (cat. no. 38).
• Oils, Water-colors, Drawings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1934 (cat. no. 25).
• James McNeill Whistler Seventeenth Anniversary Exhibition, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, CT, 1949 (cat. no. 4).
• Sweet, Frederick A., James McNeill Whistler, Art Institute of Chicago and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, 1968 (cat. no. 45).
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 88).
• Taynton, Carol (intro.), Whistler in New England Collections, [checklist], Boston, 1977 (no cat. number).
• 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. 190).
• Troyen, Carol and Janet L. Comey, Amerikakaigakodomo no sekai [Children in American art], Nagoya, Japan; Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2007.
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 25, 248, repr. fig. 17 (not exhibited).
• Ono, Ayako (ed.), ホイッスラー展. James McNeill Whistler Retrospective, Tokyo, 2014 (cat. no. 30).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, website at http://www.mfa.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 281).

Other

• None.