The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Violet and Blue: The Red Feather dates from between 1897 and 1898. ¹

The model was probably Muriel Smith (1883-1923), who was posing to Whistler in the autumn of 1897. ²

'The "Red Feather"' was completed by August 1898 when Whistler was willing to sell it to Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920). ³ It was recorded as sold by Whistler to Charles Hessele (fl. 1892-1914) in a year later, in the summer of 1899, but this sale may not have been confirmed. ⁴

It was first exhibited in the Eleventh Exhibition held at the New Gallery, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1901 (cat. no. 76) as 'Violet and Blue – The Red Feather'.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'The Red Feather' (1897, R. Birnie Philip). ⁵
• 'The "Red Feather" ' (1898, Whistler). ⁶
• 'Violet and Blue – The Red Feather' (1901, ISSPG). ⁷
• 'Girl with a Red Feather' (1905, ISSPG). ⁸
• 'A Chelsea Girl' (1921, Brooklyn Museum). ⁹
• 'Chelsea Girl' (1923, American Art Association). ¹⁰
• 'Violet and Blue: The Red Feather' (1980, YMSM). ¹¹

'Violet and Blue: The Red Feather' is the preferred title, based on the 1901 exhibition catalogue, with punctuation regularised.

Description

Violet and Blue: The Red Feather, Fogg Art Museum

A head and shoulders portrait of a young woman, in vertical format. She poses full-face, her lips pouted. She has short curly brown hair, and wears a small black 'pillar box' hat adorned with a red feather. She wears a brown jacket with grey collar. The background is a greenish brown. A partial butterfly signature is visible to left of her right shoulder. The lower part of the figure, from her shoulders down, is only roughly indicated.

Sitter

Violet and Blue: The Red Feather, Fogg Art Museum

Blue and Coral: The Little Blue Bonnet, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Probably Muriel Smith (1883-1923), an art student, who posed for several portraits including Blue and Coral: The Little Blue Bonnet y500 in August 1897, and Grey and Silver: La Petite Souris y502.

Technique

Technique

Violet and Blue: The Red Feather, Fogg Art Museum

It is painted on quite coarse canvas, prepared with a grey ground. There are pentimenti that suggest the feather was originally lower at left. Her right shoulder and what may be some trimming on her jacket or dress may have been altered at left. At the bottom the grey and brown jacket or dress has not been completed but merges into the greenish-brown tones of the background. There are areas of rubbing, apparently part of the painting process, for instance on her forehead and chin, and around her neck. The final touches to her features, such as the eyelids, nose and lips, were painted fairly precisely with a narrow pointed brush.

Conservation History

Violet and Blue: The Red Feather, photograph, 1921

Violet and Blue: The Red Feather, photograph, 1980

It is difficult to tell from photographs, but it is possible the painting has darkened. ¹²

Frame

73.7 x 53.7 x 7 cm (29 x 21 1/8 x 2 3/4").

History

Provenance

• 1899: possibly bought from the artist by the Paris art dealer Charles Hessele (fl. 1892-1914);
• 1899/1900: with Gaston Bernheim-Jeune (1870-1953), Paris.
• 1901/1904: owned by James Staats Forbes (1823-1904), London;
• 1904-1905: with the executors of J. S. Forbes.
• Date unknown: acquired by the American portrait painter Romaine Brooks (née Beatrice Romaine Goddard) (1874-1970), Capri and Paris.
• By 1921: with Dikran Kelekian (1868–1951), art dealer, New York;
• 1923: sold at auction, Kelekian sale, American Art Association, 20-31 January 1923 (lot 131) 'Chelsea Girl', bought by Kennedy & Co., New York.
• By 1926: owned by Alfred Hull Ramage (1888-1926) of Oil City, PA (who died in Newport News, Virginia, on 17 April 1926.
• 1928: sold by Jacques Seligmann & Co., New York, to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), New York, 28 March 1928;
• 1943: bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum.

In August 1898 Whistler told his manager at the Company of the Butterfly, Christine Anderson (Christiana Barrett, Mrs C. L. Baldwyn, Mrs C. A. M. Anderson) (b. 1865/1866), to suggest that Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920) might like to make an offer for 'The "Red Feather".' ¹³ There is, however, no record of a response from Eddy.

The subsequent history of the painting is not entirely clear. In July 1899 Whistler mentioned that a man in Paris 'has just now carried off seven paintings … which properly framed and signed … go to make a mighty pretty little collection.' ¹⁴ Whistler also noted that he had sold several pictures, including 'The Red Feather', to 'Hessel', who was probably the art dealer Charles Hessele (fl. 1892-1914). ¹⁵ Hessele in his turn sold some to the Paris dealer George Bernheim, but (according to E. G. Kennedy), when one was sold to a collector in London, Whistler 'noticed how incomplete they were' and tried to retrieve them, until Bernheim threatened to sue Whistler and the artist capitulated. ¹⁶

It is possible that the painting was bought directly from Bernheim by J. S. Forbes, and that he then lent it to the exhibition of the Society of Portrait Painters in 1901. This would have given Whistler the opportunity to see it again, and may have inspired the abortive attempt to retrieve his 'incomplete' paintings.

After Forbes' death the picture was put up for sale by his executors. On 7 June 1904 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) left an offer of £500 with the London art dealer William Stephen Marchant (1868-1925) for 'Girl with a red feather', but this was not accepted. ¹⁷ The painting was lent by Forbes' executors to the 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. 4).

The subsequent provenance is also unclear. The painting was later in the collection of the painter Romaine Brooks, and was bought from her by Bernheim, who sold it to the New York dealer Kelekian, who lent it to an exhibition in Brooklyn in 1921 (cat. no. 225). The photograph reproduced below shows it at that time.

Violet and Blue: The Red Feather, photograph, 1921

It was sold at auction by the American Art Association, New York, 30-31 January 1923 (lot 131) and bought by Kennedy. According to museum records, it passed at some time to Alfred Ramage, Oil City, PA. It was bought from the New York art dealer J. Seligmann by G. L. Winthrop on 28 March 1928 for $18,500, and bequeathed by him to Harvard University.

Exhibitions

• 1901: Eleventh Exhibition held at the New Gallery, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1901 (cat. no. 76) as 'Violet and Blue – The Red Feather'.
• 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. 4) as 'Girl with a Red Feather'.

It received modest press coverage in 1901, the Globe, for instance, calling it a 'pretty harmony in low tones' and the London Daily News similarly describing it as 'low in tone, yet brims with colour'. ¹⁸

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. 503), plate 323, as 'Violet and Blue: The Red Feather'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Eleventh Exhibition held at the New Gallery, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1901 (cat. no. 76) as 'Violet and Blue – The Red Feather'.
• 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. 4) as 'Girl with a Red Feather', deluxe edition, repr. f.p. 32.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The New Gallery', Globe, London, 13 November 1901, p. 5.
• Anon., 'Society of Portrait Painters', London Daily News, London, 14 November 1901, p. 6.
• Anon., Pall Mall Gazette, London, 15 November 1901, p. 3.
• Anon., St James's Gazette, London, 18 November 1901, pp. 6-7.

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 (cat. no. 368).
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, London, England, 1908 (cat. no. 161).
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911, repr. f.p. 392, plate 323.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• 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, pp. 434-35 (cat. no. 461) repr.

EXHIBITIONS:

• Paintings by Modern French Masters, Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1921 (cat. no. 225) as 'A Chelsea Girl'.
• Exhibition, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1922.

SALE:

• Kelekian sale, American Art Association, 20-31 January 1923 (lot 131) as 'Chelsea Girl'.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Harvard Museums website as 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. 297).

Other

• None.