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James Abbott McNeill Whistler 1834-1903 is in Painters.
On 11th July 1834 James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born to George Washington Whistler (age 34) and Anna McNeill (age 29) at Lowell.
On 7th April 1849 [his father] George Washington Whistler (age 48) died.
In the 1860s and 1870s James Anderson Rose (age 40) collected the works of Frederick Sandys (age 30) and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 25).
1860 to 1864. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 25). Drawing of Joanna Hiffernan (age 17).
1861 to 1863. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 26). "Symphony in White, No. 1" aka "The White Girl". Model Joanna Hiffernan (age 18).
1861 to 1863. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 26). "The Last of Old Westminster".
1861. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 26). Drawing of Joanna Hiffernan (age 18).
Between 1863 and 1865. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 28). "Rose and Silver: The Princess from the Land of Porcelain". Frequently described as "The Princess from the Land of Porcelain". Model Christine Spartali Countess d'Anvers (age 16) sister of Marie Spartali aka Stillman (age 18).
Christine Spartali Countess d'Anvers: On 19th May 1846 she was born to Michael Spartali and Euphrosyne Varsini. In December 1868 Eduard Joseph Cahen d'Anvers Marquis de Torre-Alfina and she were married.
Letters of James McNeill Whistler 1863. 16th March 1863 or 23rd March 1863. 7a Queens Road West, Chelsea. Monday - / March
Dear Rose (age 43) -
Any news about "my house" - . Is it all right? am I wanted to take any step? or will it all be settled without me? Are you going to make him do anything at all to the house and can I go in shortly when the agreement is made
I have been knocked up for a couple of days with rheumatism but hope to get to work again tomorrow - I was very sorry not to see you the other day at Rossetti's (age 34) -
Will you drop me a line about the house.
With many thanks
Ever Yours
J Whistler (age 28)
Letters of James McNeill Whistler 1863. 13th May 1863. 7 Lindsey Row Battersea Bridge Old Chelsea. Wednesday
Dear Rossetti (age 35) -
Do come and breakfast with me on Sunday next at half past eleven - to meet Gambart (age 48) and perhaps Steevens (age 40) -
Ever yours
J Whistler (age 28)
Letters of James McNeill Whistler 1863. 31st May 1863. 7 Lindsey Row Old Chelsea. Sunday
Dear Sandys (age 34) -
You have done the proper thing thoroughly and I only wish I could accept your jolly invitation and do the yachting and eat the dinner which I have no doubt will be stunning -
but it's of no use - I must stick to a couple of pictures, commissions! for I am just about cleaned out - and tin will be forked over on their completion -
Your "Vivien" is splendid in tone and colour especially the head - of course it is badly hung -
One of my pictures [is] refused and one put on the floor - You will perhaps be pleased to hear that the "White Girl" is a real success in Paris - and already I have had a letter to know if it may be possessed for gold! -
Adieu mon cher - Remember me to Tom Geckyl (age 35) -
Jo (age 20) says many things aimables - and if ever I lent her to anyone to paint, it should certainly be to you mon ami -
Adieu again - and success to the trip -
Ever yours,
J. Whistler (age 28)
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Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 9th December 1863. 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
My dear Leathart (age 43),
The picture of Whistler's (age 29) which I mentioned was the unfinished Chinese one, since bought by Gambart (age 49) & which was, as I thought, the one about which you wished to know.
The Thames picture is still unsold, and on enquiring of Whistler I find its price is 300 guineas. It is the noblest of all the pictures he has done hitherto, and is the one for your collection.
regards Legros' works, I yesterday saw for the first time a picture he is doing now, of Hamlet in his mother's chamber, where he kills Polonius, about 20 inches by 15 I suppose in size, it may be rather more, and a truly admirable work, the finest he has done in London as yet. He intends to ask 45 guineas for it. It is so very cheap proportionately to the other that I am induced to mention it to you, since it is a work which will stand the proximity of anything whatever, being most full & luminous in colour, though, like all his work, low in tone.
With kind remembrances to Mrs. Leathart[8].
I remain my dear Leathart
Yours ever truly
D G Rossetti (age 35)
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Around December 1864. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 30). "Symphony in White, No. 2" aka The Little White Girl. Model Joanna Hiffernan (age 21).
1865 to 1867. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 30). "Symphony in White, No. 3". Model Joanna Hiffernan (age 22).
1871 to 1874. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 36). "Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Frances Leyland (age 37)".
Frances Dawson: In 1834 she was born. On 23rd March 1855 Frederick Richards Leyland and she were married. In 1910 she died.
1872 to 1873. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 37). Portrait of Helen Huth nee Ogilvy (age 34) known as "Arrangement in Black, No. 2".
Helen Huth nee Ogilvy: In September 1837 she was born to Thomas Ogilvy of Corrimony in Inverness-shire. On 11th April 1855 Louis Huth and she were married.
1872 to 1874. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 37). "Blue Girl". Model Connie Gilchrist (age 6).
Around 1873. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 38). "Harmony in Yellow and Gold". Model Connie Gilchrist (age 7) performing her skipping rope stage act.
. Around 1873. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 38). Portrait of Miss Florence Leyland (age 13). Chalk and pastel.
Life of James McNeil Whistler by Pennell. Before the portrait was finished, Whistler (age 42) had begun to paint Miss Alexander, and another story, often told, is of a meeting at the door of No. 2 between the old man coming out and the little girl going in. "Who is that?" he asked the maid. Miss Alexander, who was sitting to Mr. Whistler, she said. Carlyle shook his head. "Puir lassie! Puir lassie!" and, without another word, he went out. Mrs. Leyland, whose portrait also was begun before Carlyle's was finished, remembered that he grumbled a good deal. Whistler, in the end, had to get Phil Morris (age 40) to sit for the coat. Mr. Greaves' memories are of much impatience in the studio, especially when Carlyle saw Whistler working with small brushes, so that Whistler, to quiet him, either always worked with big brushes or pretended to. William Allingham wrote in his diary of the sittings:
"Carlyle tells me he is sitting to Whistler. If C. makes signs of changing his position, W. screams out in an agonised tone: 'For God's sake, don't move!' C. afterwards said that all W.'s anxiety seemed to be to get the coat painted to ideal perfection; the face went for little. He had begun by asking two or three sittings, but managed to get a great many. At last C. flatly rebelled. He used to define W. as the most absurd creature on the face of the earth."
Letters of James McNeill Whistler 1863. 15th October 1877. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 43) to Philip Richard Morris (age 40). 96 Cheyne Walk.
Dear Morris
I had thought I would write no letters - they are such sad businesses - & the flaw in the friendship like the crack in the china - it is useless to explain - the true ring has gone for ever - on the other hand absolute silence may be misunderstood - so I had better state clearly how we stand. - You say that I made no objection - but virtually consented to what you have done - is this a satisfaction to you Morris? - if so - I might stop here. It didnt occur to you then - when you made your little proposal - that of course I should consent - & were you again to ask my permission to do me any other wrong - I should again consent. - Have you forgotten our old walks & talks in Chelsea? I had taken you into the intimacy of my work and believed in you as a strong sympathizer with whom all the mysteries of the studio might be freely shared - I made no secret of my daily experience but willingly offered these to my chosen companion & from painter to painter no confidences could have been more unrestricted
now what happened? the first time your fidelity is put to the test - you fail me utterly - & what a rare chance you lost Morris - it is seldom that a confrere[4] has offered him such a complete occasion for vindicating the dignity of a brothers work -
You are asked to paint another mans picture - & you do so - not in ignorance of all tradition of etiquette - but even keenly alive to many milder aggressions on the part of unimportant imitators - whose evil doings - you have been wont to condemn.
"If you cant be witty - be bold" Morris - & acting upon this your principle - you come to me - & calmly talk over the pain you propose to give me - & are astonished at the encouragement you receive - What did you expect Morris? was Whistler to beseech you to desist? - for him the crime once entertained was already perpetrated
The sarcasm of fate - you seem not to have guarded against while I cannot help being amused - at the malice des choses [the mischievousness of fate] - which has put Whistlers picture in Whistler's frame2 - & so completes the situation -
P. S. You wrote to me while painting the portrait your happy belief that chivalry was not extinct.
Note 1. F. R. Leyland had commissioned JW to paint Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland. It was exhibited in 1874 but not delivered to Leyland at that time. After their quarrel over Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, Leyland may have abandoned hope of receiving it, and he commissioned Morris to paint P. R. Morris, Portrait of Frances Leyland. This portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878. JW's portrait was eventually delivered to Leyland, and in 1906 both portraits were hanging in the sitter's drawing room (Pennell, Joseph, and Elizabeth Robins Pennell, The Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell Collection of Whistleriana Shown in Division of Prints, Library of Congress, Southwest Pavilion, Washington, G.P.O. Library Branch, 1921, p. 103).
Note 2. JW's annoyance was compounded by a request from Morris for the name of JW's frame-maker. He is said to have replied, 'If you've got the portrait then for God's sake have the frame' (Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, pp. 279, 377, n. 183-85).
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Letters of James McNeill Whistler 1863. 16th October 1877. Philip Richard Morris (age 40) to James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 43).
Dear Whistler
know you have undergone great irritation & annoyance - for a long time - which for me - takes the sting out of your letter - evidently written for your own consolation
Sincerely Yours
Phil R Morris
To J M Whistler Esqr
In 1878 James Anderson Rose (age 58) represented James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 43) in his libel trial against John Ruskin (age 58) for having described his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face". Whistler won the case and was awarded one farthing, the smallest coin, to Whistler. The court costs were divided between the two. Ruskin's were paid for by a public subscription organised by the Fine Art Society. Whistler was declared bankrupt.
1879. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 44). "The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre". Portrait of Frederick Richards Leyland (age 47).
From Smithsonian.
By 1879, two years after completing the Peacock Room, Whistler had fallen deeply into debt. To repay his creditors, he was forced to auction off his assets, including the White House, his beloved studio-residence in the Chelsea neighborhood of London. Whistler channeled his grief and anger into an act of creative revenge. Knowing Leyland would be among the many creditors who would inspect his studio, Whistler painted this bitter caricature to replace The Three Girls, a painting he had promised his patron for a decade but had never completed. It shows the artist's stylish patron morphing into a monstrous peacock, surrounded by bags of money and perched atop the gabled roof of the artist's White House. As a final insult, Whistler mounted his cruel caricature in the frame he had designed for The Three Girls. Consigning his most exquisite frame to this spiteful purpose signaled Whistler's decision to abandon the painting that had initiated his relationship with Leyland ten years earlier.
On 6th May 1879 James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 44) was declared insolvent following the Ruskin libel trial.
Around 1880. Ralph Wormeley Curtis (age 25). "Whistler (age 45) at a Party".
1881. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 46). Arrangement in Black, No. 5: Portrait of Valerie Langdon Lady Meux (age 28).
1881. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 46). Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Valerie Langdon Lady Meux (age 28).
On 31st January 1881 [his mother] Anna McNeill (age 76) died at 43 St Mary's Terrace. She was buried at Hastings Cemetery.
. Before 1884. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 49). Portrait of Miss Florence Leyland (age 24). Chalk and pastel.
Letters of James McNeill Whistler 1863. Upton & Britton, Solicitors. 51, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, W. C.
5th July 1889.
Sir,
As you have taken no notice of our last letter to you of the 31st May last we beg to inform you that unless we hear from you by Wednesday next that you are prepared to come to some amicable arrangement with our Client Sir Henry Meux (age 33) regarding the unfinished Portrait of Lady Meux (age 37) [Probably Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs] for which you have been paid our instructions are to commence legal proceedings against you without further Notice.
Yours faithfully.
Upton & Britton
Mr. J. Mc. Whistler (age 54)
13. Tite Street, Chelsea.
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On 17th July 1903 James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 69) died.
Letters of James McNeill Whistler 1863. 7A Queens Road West - Chelsea - Friday
Dear Rose -
Many thanks for all that [you] have done and are so kindly doing for me - I shall only be too glad to see about what etchings I may have for exhibition by Thursday next - Tomorrow though I can't have the pleasure of dining with you, as I am finishing The White Girl for the Salon in Paris and it ought to go off on Monday - so that I should be painting at it until late in the evening - I would very much like you to see it before I send it - If you were by any chance in Rossetti's neighborhood tomorrow morning and could drop in and have a peep -
Shall I send the Brittany Sea piece to the 'Artists & Amateurs' or would it be too large?
Ever Yours
J Whistler
Father: George Washington Whistler
GrandFather: Charles Daniel McNeill
Mother: Anna McNeill
Great x 2 Grandfather: Benjamin Kingsley
Great x 1 Grandfather: Zephaniah Kingsley Senior
Great x 2 Grandmother: Elizabeth Wright
GrandMother: Martha Kingsley
Great x 1 Grandmother: Isabella Johnston