James McNeill Whistler 1834 - 1903

Walter Sickert, London
Ellen Cobden, (Sickert's former wife)
(probably) Mrs. R.J. Cobden Sanderson (her sister), San Francisco, California, 1914
M. Knoedler & Co., New York
J. Harris Whittemore, Naugatuck, Connecticut, 1920
J. Harris Whittemore Company, Naugatuck, Connecticut
Mrs. Charles H. Upson, Middlebury, Connecticut, 1941 (neé Whittemore)
Estate of Gertrude Whittemore Upson (Sotheby's, New York, December 3, 1987, lot 190, illustrated in color)
Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York (acquired from the above)
Aquired by the present owners from the above, 1988

London, New English Art Club at Dudley Gallery, Egyptian Hall, 1888, no. 98
Paris, Palais de l'Ècole des Beaux-Arts, Quai Malaquais, Oeuvres de James McNeill Whistler, 1905, no. 6
San Francisco, California, Department of Fine Arts, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, no. 275 (as Note Blanche: Whistler's Study of Jo)
Naugatuck, Connecticut, The Tuttle House, For the Benefit of the Children's Center, April 1938, no. 36

Yorkshire Post, April 9, 1888
Daily Telegraph, April 19, 1888
Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1908, vol. I, p. 95
Walter Sickert, "Where Paul and I Differ," Art News, no. 14, February 1910, p. 113
Joseph Pennell, "The Forty Undiscovered Whistlers", International Studio, LXXII, February 1921, p. 161, pl. 156
Andrew McClaren Young, Margaret MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven, Connecticut, 1980, no. 44, p. 23, pl. 18, illustrated

The present painting was catalogued by Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell as "doubtless done in the Boulevard des Batignolles [Whistler's studio in Paris] in 1861'; in November 1862 Whistler wrote from Guéthary, Basses-Purénées, 'Je regrette la petite toile de Jo. C'est une tranchée de chemin de fer - mais il semble impossible de pouvoir la finir, car chaque fois qu'il pleut on est obligé d'attendre trois jours pour que la terre seche avant de pouvoir y travailler!"

The model in this painting is the red-haired Irish girl, Joanna Hifferman, Whistler's companion and mistress whom he used as a model for several pictures in the 1860's.  She posed for the celebrated Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; also formerly from the J. Harris Whittemore Collection) and Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl (1864, Tate Gallery).  In another letter to Fantin-Latour dated July of 1861, Whistler described her hair as "d'un rouge non pas doré mais cuivré-comme tout ce qu'on a rêvé de Venitienne!", and further boasted of her looks to Courbet who painted her at least twice. The fact that Whistler did not mention her by name has led art historians to believe that he had only recently met her.  A White Note appears to be the first picture he painted of her.