The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Portrait of Charles L. Freer dates from 1902. ¹ It was commissioned by the sitter and begun shortly after 5 May 1902 when Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) arrived in London. ² Whistler invited Freer to pose in his brown jacket: 'Look in about three bring brown jacket', he telegraphed on 13 May, and three days later, 'Do look in today about three with jacket Chelsea Studio', that is, at 74 Cheyne Walk. ³ On 13 June 1902, Freer told Frank J. Hecker (1846-1927), 'he is making me look like a pope.' ⁴ The portrait was 'in progress' on 18 June 1902. ⁵

On 30 March 1903, Freer, planning another trip to London, asked Whistler, 'Shall you be in Chelsea after June 15th? and if you are in the mood would you be willing to resume work on my portrait.' ⁶ However, when Freer arrived, Whistler was too ill (he died on 17 July), and the portrait was never completed.

Images

Subject

Titles

There have been minor variations in the title:

• 'Portrait of Mr Freer' (1902, Whistler). ⁷
• 'Portrait of Charles L. Freer' (1980, YMSM). ⁸

'Portrait of Charles L. Freer' is the preferred title.

Description

Portrait of Charles L. Freer, Freer Gallery of Art

A half-length portrait of a man in three-quarter view to right, looking at the viewer. He has greying hair, a short pointed beard and a moustache curled up at the ends. He wears a reddish brown jacket and poses against a dark khaki/green background. The portrait is in vertical format.

Sitter

Charles L. Freer, photograph, Freer Gallery of Art

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) of Detroit was Whistler's major patron from the late 1880s until the artist's death. He formed the largest collection of Whistler's work in America, and bequeathed it to the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Portrait of Charles L. Freer, Freer Gallery of Art

Charles L. Freer, photograph, Freer Gallery of Art

Freer's rapport with Whistler comes over strongly in this vivid head with its sensitive and alert expression.

Technique

Technique

Portrait of Charles L. Freer, Freer Gallery of Art

It is thinly painted on a grey ground. The features are outlined in orange, which shows through the beard and surface modelling. The face has been painted tentatively with small brushes, the dark khaki background painted more broadly with criss-crossing strokes. The jacket is a rich reddish-brown, painted rather dryly, and left unfinished.

Shortly before Whistler's death, Freer suggested more sittings, but it was too late: the painting was never completed. ⁹

Conservation History

It was cleaned and 'resurfaced' several times between 1922 and 1951. In 1965 Ben Johnson commented that the varnish was thick and retouching around the head had darkened; accordingly the portrait was cleaned and losses infilled, and it was retouched and revarnished. In 1970 a small scratch on the nose was repaired. ¹⁰

Frame

Charles L. Freer, with frame, Freer Gallery of Art

An American-made Grau-style frame dating from ca 1905. ¹¹ The frame was re-gilded in 1960 and repaired in 1965.

History

Provenance

• 1902: commissioned by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death, and bequeathed to his executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), London;
• 1903: sold by Miss Birnie Philip to C. L. Freer on 1 July 1903 for £500;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Whistler noted that 'Portrait of Mr Freer' was in progress, but not paid for, in 1902. ¹²

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.

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. 550), plate 354, as 'Portrait of Charles L. Freer'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, New York, 2004, p. 45, fig. 2.17.
• Gallatin, Albert Eugene, Portraits of Whistler: A Critical Study and an Iconography, New York and London, 1918, p. 9.
• Glazer, Lee, Emily Jacobsen, Blyth McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor. Lovely Little Games, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2019,p p. 104-05, repr. p. 105.
• Hartmann, Sadakichi C. (pseudonym of Sidney Allen), The Whistler Book: A Monograph of the Life and Position in Art of James McNeill Whistler, Together with a Careful Study of His More Important Works, Boston, 1910, p. 22.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 97, fig. 89.
• Merrill, Linda, With Kindest Regards. The Correspondence of Charles Lang Freer and James McNeill Whistler, 1890-1903, Washington, DC, and London, 1995, pp. 31, 164-65, 185-86, repr. pl. 5.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, p. 516.
• Prideaux, Tom, The World of Whistler, New York, 1970, p. 171.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 156 (cat. no. 42).
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 136-37.
• Sutherland, Daniel E., Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake, New Haven and London, 2014, p. 330.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, repr. pl. 126.
• Taylor, Hilary, James McNeill Whistler, London, 1978, pl. 23.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 29. 35.

Books, General

• Lawton, Thomas, Freer: a Legacy of Art, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1993, p. 52, fig. 36.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 15 (03.301).
• Stubbs, Burns A., 'James McNeill Whistler: A Biographical Outline Illustrated from the Collections of the Freer Gallery of Art', Occasional Papers, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1950, vol. 1, no. 4, pl. 27.

EXHIBITION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 23, 156, pl. 66.
• Dayer Gallati, Barbara (ed.), High Society. Amerikanische Portraits des Gilded Age, Munich 2008, pp. 67, 69, 70, fig. 10 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• Hobbs, Susan, 'A Connoisseur's Vision: The American Collection of Charles Lang Freer', American Art Review, vol. 4, August 1977, pp. 76-101, at p. 76.
• Hobbs, Susan, 'Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art', Magazines Antiques, vol. 121, November 1981, pp. 1194-202, pl. 1.
• Pyne, Kathleen, 'Portrait of a Collector as an Agnostic: Charles Lang Freer and Connoisseurship,' The Art Bulletin, vol. 78, no. 1, 1996, pp. 75-97.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1903.301a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 240).

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.