The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Brun et or: De race dates from the late 1890s, between 1896 and 1900. ¹

Brun et or: De race, The Hunterian

It is dated from the technique and from its relationship to another portrait of the same sitter, The Boy in a Cloak y512, as well as to portraits of the model's brother and sister, The Little Faustina y510 and Vert et or: Le Raconteur y513.

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) of Detroit recorded seeing a portrait of a 'little boy with fine eyes' in Whistler's studio in 1903 and thought it was intended for George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914). ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Only one title, with variations in language and punctuation, has been suggested:

• 'Brun et Or – de Race' (1905, Royal Society of Portrait Painters). ³
• 'Brun et or. De Race. – Brown and Gold. De race' (1905, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts). ⁴
• 'Brown and Gold – "de Race" ' (1936, University of Glasgow). ⁵
• 'Brun et or: De race' (1980, YMSM). ⁶

'Brun et or: De race' is the generally accepted title.

Whistler not only added monetary value to the title, with the word 'gold', but described the sitter as 'de race', which suggested that he was born of pure blood, i.e. a thorough-bred, of aristocratic appearance. For example, in describing the reaction of Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921) and Marie Louise Hortense Madeleine de Montebello (1853-1930) to Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac y398, Whistler told his wife,

'[T]hey 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!' ⁷

The boy was not the only sitter virtually ennobled by Whistler, who often called a sitter 'princess', while his landlady's daughter became 'Rose and Gold: The Little Lady Sophie of Soho y504.

Description

Brun et or: De race, The Hunterian

A half-length portrait in vertical format. It shows a young boy with fine features facing the viewer. He has olive skin, dark brown hair with a central parting. He wears very dark clothes, and is seen against a dark khaki green background.

Sitter

Brun et or: De race, The Hunterian

The Boy in a Cloak, The Hunterian

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) of Detroit recorded seeing a portrait of a 'little boy with fine eyes' in Whistler's studio in 1903. ⁸ Freer also noted that Whistler had painted another portrait of this boy, The Boy in a Cloak y512. The sitter, a young Italian boy, was the brother of The Little Faustina y510 and of 'Le Raconteur' in Vert et or: Le Raconteur y513.

Technique

Technique

Brun et or: De race, The Hunterian

It is painted on a fine weave canvas and is thinly painted as well as being rubbed in many areas as part of the painting process resulting in smooth modelling of the face and an unusually highly level of finish, plus careful attention to detail in the boy's coat.

Conservation History

Brun et or: De race, photograph Henry Dixon & Son, 1902

Frame

Grau-style frame, dating from the 1890s. 83.7 x 63.8 x 8.2cm. Like The Boy in a Cloak y512, the frame bears the label of Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892), Whistler's frame-maker in London. ⁹

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1935: given by Miss Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.

Exhibitions

• 1905: 15th Exhibition, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1905 (cat. no. 30) as 'Brun et Or – de Race'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 36)as 'Brun et or. De Race. – Brown and Gold. De race'.

The high level of finish and the existence of a butterfly signature imply that this work was ready for exhibition in Whistler's lifetime, but no such exhibition has been identified. It has been suggested that it was The Golden Lily y542, which was exhibited in 1901, but descriptions of that painting do not tally with the appearance of this boy.

It was, however, shown both at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London and the Whistler memorial exhibition in Paris in 1905. The Pall Mall Gazette on 9 November described it as 'inimitable'.

When it was shown in Loan Collection of Works by James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, 1912 it caught the attention of Ezra Pound (1885-1972), whose poem includes the lines:

You also, our first great, / Had tried all ways; / Tested and pried and worked in many fashions, / And this much gives me heart to play the game.

Here is a part that’s slight, and part gone wrong, / And much of little moment, and some few / Perfect as Dürer!

"In the Studio" and these two portraits, if I had my choice!' ¹⁰

The 'two portraits' are identified in a note as Grenat et or: Le Petit Cardinal y469 and Brun et or: De race y511.

By the terms of Miss R. Birnie Philip's gift to the University of Glasgow, it is not lendable.

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. 511), plate 352, as 'Brun et or: De race'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 15th Exhibition, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1905 (cat. no. 30) as 'Brun et Or – de Race'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 36).

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Pall Mall Gazette, 9 November 1905, p. 10.

Journals 1855-1905

• Bénédite, Léonce, L'Oeuvre de James MacNeill Whistler, Paris, 1905, repr. pl. 24.
• [Review of Royal Society of Portrait Painters], The Queen, 18 November 1905, pp. 66-67.
• [Review of Royal Society of Portrait Painters], The Speaker, 1905, p. 165.

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. 189 (cat. no. 200).
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 168 (cat. no. 32).
• Eddy, Arthur Jerome, Recollections and Impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler, Philadelphia and London, 1903, pp. 273-74.
• Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, p. 368.

Books, General

• Gordon, Donald E., Modern Art Exhibitions 1900-1916, Munich, 1974, pp. 70, 120, repr.
• Pound, Ezra, in: Cookson, William (ed.), Selected Prose: 1909-1965, New York, 1957, pp. 116-17.
• Zinnes, Harriet (ed.), Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts, New York, 1980, pp. 2, 217-18.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• James McNeill Whistler, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 1936 (cat. no. 36).

Journals 1906-Present

• Pound, Ezra Weston Loomis, 'Whistler', The New Age, 12 September 1912, p. 466 (reprinted in Cookson, William (ed.), Selected Prose: 1909-1965, New York, 1957, pp. 116-17, and Zinnes 1980, cited above).
• Pound, Ezra Weston Loomis, 'To Whistler, American', Poetry, October 1912, p. 7.
• Beasley, Rebecca, 'Ezra Pound's Whistler', American Literature, vol. 74 (3), 2002, pp. 485-516, fig. 1; online at London: Birkbeck ePrints, http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• Anon., 'Unexpected Whistlers', The Glasgow Herald, Glasgow, 1 June 1915.
• Anon., 'Art and Artists', The Observer, London, 6 June 1915.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/41086.
• ArtUK website at http://artuk.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 308).

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.