James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903

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Description

James McNeill Whistler
Nelly
signed with artist's butterfly device, l.l., inscribed Nelly, l.r.
pencil on blue paper
Sheet: 8 1/2 by 5 5/8 in.
21.6 by 14.3 cm.
Executed circa 1866-70

Provenance

Maude C. Rothenstein
Laurence W. Hodson, Compton Hall, Wolverhampton, circa 1905
Sale: Christie, London, June 25, 1906, lot 136
Acquired from the above by Agnew or Colnaghi
Ickenheimer
Mrs. Harry Baird, New York
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 29, 1986, lot 142
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Literature

Elizabeth Robbins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, London & Philadelphia, 1908, Vol. II, f.p.242
Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeil Whistler, Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolors, a Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995, p. 111, #337

Catalogue Note

This work depicts Helen Ionides, of the wealthy Greek ship-owning family, who became the wife of Whistler's younger brother, William McNeill Whistler, in 1877