The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" dates from 1898. By New Year's Day 1899 the newly completed painting, not yet varnished, had arrived at the house of John James Cowan (1846-1936) in Edinburgh. ¹

Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!', Fogg Art Museum

It was exhibited with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in 1899 (cat. no. 136) as 'Brown and Gold - Lillie "in our Alley !" '

Whistler's biographers, the Pennells, visited Whistler's Fitzroy Street studio on 14 July 1900 and were under the impression that they saw this portrait, but they could easily have mistaken it for another portrait of Lillie. ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Gold & Brown, little Lillie' (1899, Whistler). ³
• 'Lillie, in our Alley' (1899, Whistler). ⁴
• 'Brown and Gold – Lillie "in our Alley!" ' (1899, ISSPG). ⁵
• 'Lillie in our Ally' [sic] and 'Brown and Gold, Lillie in our Ally' [sic] (1905, ISSPG). ⁶
• 'Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!'' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

The title was an allusion to the eighteenth century ballad 'Sally in our Alley' written by the poet Henry Carey in 1725, which starts:

'Of all the Girls that are so smart / There’s none like pretty SALLY, / She is the Darling of my Heart, / And she lives in our Alley. / There is no Lady in the Land / Is half so sweet as SALLY, / She is the Darling of my Heart, / And she lives in our Alley.' ⁸

Description

Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!', Fogg Art Museum

A half-length portrait of a girl in vertical format. She sits facing left, in three-quarter view to left, but looking sideways to her left, at the viewer. She has shoulder-length brown hair and a deep fringe, and wears a black cap. Her black dress has a high neck, and a white scarf or blouse is visible at the front. She is sitting on a wooden straight-backed chair, possibly with an off-white canvas top. The background is dark brown.

Sitter

Lilian ('Lily') Pamington (b. 1887/1888).

Whistler painted about ten portraits of Lillie Pamington including the Study for 'Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" ' y463.

Technique

Composition

Study for 'Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" ', National Gallery of Canada

Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!', Fogg Art Museum

There is an oil study for this portrait, Study for 'Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" ' y463. The main differences between the two are that in the study the chair is further right on the canvas, the white scarf, or shirt, is not so bright, and the hair is more abundant. Also the background of the study is dark green whereas in the final painting it is a dark reddish brown. Furthermore there are touches of blue on her scarf, in the study, instead of the pinkish white of Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!'.

Technique

Study for 'Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" ', National Gallery of Canada

It is painted thinly and directly, with quite broad brush strokes on a fairly fine weave canvas, with no pentimenti. Touches of pink are used to add warmth to the shadows of her nostrils and ears and lips.

When Cowan told Whistler it had been criticized by an art dealer for being dark, he replied:

You are told that your little "Lillie, in our Alley" is ugly! or dirty etc … It is a beauty - But by and bye [sic] they will come want to do business with you and it!! -

But you shall have better directly and the Lilly I will take back in lieu of anything prettier you may prefer.' ⁹

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!', Fogg Art Museum

ca 1930: framed by M. Grieve in America, in a Grau-style frame. ¹⁰

History

Provenance

• 1899: sold by the artist to John James Cowan (1846-1936), who still owned it in 1916.
• By 1934: owned by the New Orleans collectors, Hunt Henderson (1869-1939) and his wife;
• 1939: bequeathed by Hunt Henderson to Tulane University;
• 1941: sold by Tulane through the Macdonald Gallery, New York, to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943);
• 1943: Winthrop bequest to the Fogg Art Museum.

'Gold & Brown, little Lillie' was sold by Whistler to J. J. Cowan, arriving by New Years Day, 1899. ¹¹ In June Whistler offered to exchange it for some other painting, an offer Cowan did not take up! ¹² On 19 November 1902 Cowan sent Whistler a photograph of it. ¹³

It was lent by Cowan to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in London in 1905 (cat. no. 18) and to an exhibition in New York in 1916 (cat. no. 154). It was lent by Mr and Mrs Hunt Henderson, New Orleans, to an exhibition in Chicago in 1934 (cat. no. 427).

Exhibitions

• 1899: Twelfth Summer Exhibition, New Gallery, London, April-July 1899.
• 1899: 2nd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, London, 1899 (cat. no. 136) as 'Brown and Gold - Lillie "in our Alley!" '
• 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. 18) as 'Lillie in our Ally' [sic] and 'Brown and Gold, Lillie in our Ally' [sic] in ordinary and deluxe edition respectively.

Plan of a panel of pictures for the ISSPG, Tate Archive, London

Paintings at the ISSPG, Glasgow University Library

Although Brown and Gold: Lillie 'In our Alley!' y464 was not part of Whistler’s tentative arrangements of exhibits in a sketch sent to John Lavery (1856-1941), Plan of a panel of pictures for the ISSPG m1582 and a revised arrangement, Paintings at the ISSPG m1583, it was sent to the exhibition because Purple and Gold: Phryne the Superb! - Builder of Temples y490 had not been completed in time.

The ISSPG show was extensively reviewed (the press-cuttings are in the National Art Library in the Victoria and Albert Museum) and Whistler's exhibit met with mixed reviews, many comparing it unfavourably to the work of, for instance, John Lavery (1856-1941). However, some, such as the Manchester Courier of 10 May 1899, were mildly appreciative. Their critic wrote, 'His six pictures bear characteristic titles, are small in size, and as Whistlerian as ever. ... "Brown and Gold - Lillie in our Alley", is another subdued exercise of perfect restraint in handling, in which the brown is far more evident than the gold.' ¹⁴ On the same day, the Pall Mall Gazette described it as a 'clear, cleanly painted, exquisitely simple girl's head'. Furthermore a vivid but anonymous sketch of the portrait was published in The Morning Leader on 15 May 1899. ¹⁵

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. 464), plate 298, as 'Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" '.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Twelfth Summer Exhibition, New Gallery, London, April-July 1899.
• 2nd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, London, 1899 (cat. no. 136) as 'Brown and Gold – Lillie "in our Alley!" ' (de luxe edition, repr.)
• 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. 18) as 'Lillie in our Ally' [sic] and 'Brown and Gold, Lillie in our Ally' [sic] in ordinary and deluxe edition respectively.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'International Art at Knightsbridge, Glasgow Herald, Glasgow, 9 May 1899, p. 8.
• Anon., 'At Knightsbridge, Daily Telegraph & Courier (London), 10 May 1899, p. 10.
• Anon., 'International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers', The Manchester Courier, Manchester, 10 May 1899.
• Anon., 'International Society', Pall Mall Gazette, London, 10 May 1899, pp. 1-2.
• Vermind, N. E., 'The International Art Exhibition', The Morning Leader, London, 15 May 1899, repr. anonymous sketch of the painting.
• 'Venatrix', 'The International Society's Exhibition', Gentlewoman, London, 20 May 1899, p. 34.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

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 p. 213, (cat. no. 379).
• Cowan, John J., From 1846-1932, Edinburgh, 1933, p. 172.
• Laver, James, Whistler, London, 1930, p. 285.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, pp. 205, 207, 224.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, p. 77.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, no. 116, p. 167.
• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, p. 50, repr. f.p. 50.
• Wood, T. Martin, Whistler: Masterpieces in Color, ed. T. Lehman Hare, London, 1908, repr. pl. 5, f.p. 38.

Books, General

• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 433 (cat. no. 460) repr.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Paintings, Etchings and Lithographs by James M. Whistler, Kennedy and Co., New York, 1916 (cat. no. 154).
• Sweet, Frederick A., James McNeill Whistler, Art Institute of Chicago and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, 1968 (cat. no. 50).
• Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1972 (cat. no. 94), repr.
• Wolohojian, Stephan, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon; National Gallery, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003 -2004, (New York, NY, 2003), pp. 477-78 (cat. no. 219), repr.
• Wolohojian, Stephan, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 2003, pp. 494-95 (cat. no. 219), repr.
• For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 2004.

Journals 1906-Present

• Shaw, Edith and Margaret F. MacInnes, 'Four Years with Whistler', Apollo, vol. 87, March 1968, pp. 198-201, at pp. 200-01.

Websites

• Harvard Art Museums website at http://www.harvardartmuseums.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 286).

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.