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Description: | Royal (1) s. in pencil with butterfly; c.l. and b.r.
(2) inscr. in pencil; u.l. "destroyed ?"
(3) stamp; v. square stamp of Miss Rosalind Birnie Philip PRINT WAY, Thomas Robert; (English; 1861-1913) CRE WHISTLER, James McNeill; (American; 1834-1903) The sitter for this portrait is Whistler?s brother, William Gibbs McNeill Whistler, who was two years younger than Whistler and described by their mother as "the gentlest of my two boys". Whistler had great faith in his brother?s abilities as a doctor and when his wife, Beatrix, became ill in the late summer of 1894, Dr. Whistler travelled from London to Paris to examine her. However, Whistler could not accept his brother?s diagnosis that Beatrice was terminally ill with cancer, and they quarrelled. This lithograph was temporarily forgotten about by Whistler and it was Beatrice who sent it to Thomas Way to be printed. When the proofs were returned, Whistler was pleased with the results and requested that additional impressions be pulled. He made the following comments in a letter to Way shortly after he had received the initial proofs; " I like the drawing very much - and if I had sent it to you when [the paper was] fresh I think the head would have come out perfectly - The nose is excellent - only the eyes seem not to have taken - The hands would have been charming if the drawing had not been kicking about in neglect, so that some of the sharpness has gone now." This lithograph was printed by Thomas Way. (See also GLAHA 49187).
Birnie Philip Bequest, 1958. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | PORTRAIT : DR. WILLIAM WHISTLER : WHISTLER CENTENARY : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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