letter to Goupil & Co., in London, asking what Mr. Whistler’s price
would be for a small picture of Lady Eden, and he was informed that the
price would be about five hundred guineas. He replied, stating that he
thought the price too high, and said that he would call and see Mr.
Whistler in Paris. Instead of so doing, he applied to a common friend,
who wrote Whistler saying that the portrait “is for a friend of mine, on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, you will have to paint a very
lovely and very elegant woman, whose portrait you will be delighted to
undertake,” and “under the circumstances I think you might make very
liberal concessions.”
The matter of price was always a matter of indifference to
Whistler,--_if also_ of indifference to the other party,--and when Sir
William wrote concerning the price, Whistler replied very cordially in
January, 1894, as follows:
“DEAR SIR WILLIAM EDEN: Your letter has only just been handed to
me, but this may still, perhaps, reach you in the afternoon. It is
quite understood as to the little painting, and I think there can
be no difficulty about the sum. The only really interesting point
is that I should be able to produce the charming picture which,
with the aid of Lady Eden, ought to be expected. Once undertaken,
however slight, for me one work is as important as another, and
even more so, as Calino said. As for the amount, Moore, I fancy,
spoke of one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds.”
The letter is quite characteristic of the artist. His interest was in
the possibility of producing a charming picture. The amount he mentioned
was less than he ordinarily asked for a water-color sketch, and
one-fifth that named by Goupil & Co.
It must be noted that the amount is not fixed by Whistler, but is left
at from one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds, depending of
course upon the painter’s own feeling regarding his work, and not
depending in any sense upon the whim of the baronet.
The portrait went on towards completion. Instead of painting a head, as
was originally suggested, Whistler painted a full-length figure seated
upon a little sofa, the entire composition being quite as elaborate an
interior as if the canvas had been five times the size. The picture was
about fourteen to sixteen inches long by five or six inches high, and
was such an exquisite bit of the painter’s art that a representative of
a public gallery, who did not know that it was a commission, offered for
it twelve hundred dollars, and higher offers were made.
Sir William Eden did not again refer to the price, although he had many
opportunities; but on February 14, St. Valentine’s day, the baronet
visited the studio and expressed himself as delighted with the picture.
On taking leave, he informed Mr. Whistler that he was about to start for
India on a hunting-tour, and, taking an envelope from his pocket, he
handed it to the artist. “Here is a valentine for you. Look at it after
I have gone. Don’t bother about it just now.”
When the artist opened his “valentine,” he found a check for one hundred
guineas,--the minimum amount mentioned in his letter. The baronet had
taken it upon himself to fix the price of the picture on the eve of his
departure. The “valentine” read as follows:
“4 RUE DE PRESBOURG, PARIS, February 14, 1894.
“DEAR MR. WHISTLER: Herewith your valentine,--cheque value one
hundred guineas. The picture will always be of inestimable value to
me, and will be handed down as an heirloom as long as heirlooms
last.
“I shall always look with pleasure to the painting of it,--and,
with thanks, remain
“Yours sincerely,
“WILLIAM EDEN.”
To which Whistler immediately replied:
“110 RUE DU BAC, PARIS, February 14.
“MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM: I have your valentine. You really are
magnificent, and have scored all round.
“I can only hope that the little picture will prove even slightly
worthy of all of us, and I rely on Lady Eden’s amiable promise to
let me add the few last touches we know of. She has been so
courageous and kind all along in doing her part.
“With best wishes again for your journey,
“Very faithfully,
“J. MCNEILL WHISTLER.”
From the legal point of view Whistler made the mistake of not
immediately returning the check for one hundred guineas, and the
additional mistake of exhibiting the picture in the Salon of the Champ
de Mars in the spring of 1894, as No. 1187, under the title of “Brown
and Gold. Portrait of Lady E----.”
But ultimately the one hundred guineas were returned, and the baronet
brought suit to secure the possession of the picture.
Whistler would have permitted himself to be drawn-and-quartered before
Sir William Eden should have any work of his. He felt, and most justly,
that a work which had been begun by him, first, to oblige others, and
secondly, as a labor of love, had been placed upon a commercial footing
of the lowest level. He felt that there had been no real desire to have
one of his pictures on account of its artistic merit, but that there had
been an attempt to secure something of commercial value for one-third
its market price.
The episode of the “valentine,” truly ingeniously devised, completely
changed the relations between the parties. He painted out the little
portrait, substituted another head, and stood ready to return the
hundred guineas and to pay whatever damages the court might award the
plaintiff; but under no circumstances should the baronet have the
picture.
For the first time in the annals of litigation the question was
presented for final determination,--whether an artist could be compelled
to deliver work which he claimed was not yet finished to his
satisfaction, even though he had received the price. Be it said to the
credit of the French tribunal of last resort, that it held broadly that
the artist is master and proprietor of his work until such time as it
shall please him to deliver it. But that, failing delivery, he must
return the price with interest thereon, together with such damages as
the sitter may have sustained.
The hand of the painter cannot be forced by the importunity of either
patient or impatient patron, and no man but the painter himself can say
when a painting is sufficiently finished to be delivered.
Except in those few cases where Whistler took such intense dislikes to
sitters or purchasers that he would not permit them to have his work
under any circumstances, there is no instance where the great painter,
in unduly delaying the delivery of a picture, had any intention of
depriving the owner of what was rightfully his,--namely, the possession
of the picture.
Beyond the right of possession, Whistler did not concede much to the
owner. Frequently he challenged the owner’s right to exhibit without his
sanction, and he was quite inclined to deny to the owner the moral right
to sell at speculative prices. He had a poor opinion of those who would
buy from the artist to sell later at a profit; he classed them as
dealers.
* * * * *
Sitters did not always see things in the same light, and became tired,
then impatient, sometimes ugly. Then Whistler would no longer like them,
and the sittings would come to an end. If the portrait was unfinished,
it was cast aside to remain forever unfinished; if finished, the money
would be returned and the portrait kept,--under no circumstances to fall
into the hands of a person whom he disliked.
The studio contained many an unfinished portrait, some of them works of
great beauty, but of complete indifference to Whistler. He lost all
interest in them when he lost interest in the sitters; and it mattered
not to him that he had spent and lost days, and weeks, and months of
precious time, nor did it matter to him that his sitters had exhausted
themselves with numerous and long seances.
* * * * *
Childless, his paintings were his children, and to part with one was
like the parting of mother and child.
In these days, when the selling of pictures has become an essential part
of the art of painting, it is difficult for people to comprehend the
attitude of a man who really did not like to sell.
“What are pictures painted for, if not to sell?” asks the spirit of the
age.
It does not seem quite so obvious that poems are written to sell and
that music is composed to sell. Even the “practical man” feels that
poems and music ought to be made for something more than to sell, and if
they are not, they will be the worst for the narrow end in view; but
paintings and sculpture, they are commercial products to be dealt in
accordingly.
When Whistler did part with a picture he had no faculty for getting a
high price. His prices were very uncertain. To one person he might ask a
round sum, to another small,--just as the mood seized him, the price
having no particular relation to the painting.
He never could see why paintings should be sold, like cloth, by the
square yard; why a large picture should necessarily bring more than a
small. To him perfection was perfection, whether large or small.
What justifiable reason is there for the commercial schedule of so much
for a head, so much for a half-length, so much for a full-length
portrait?
The one may, but does by no means necessarily, take a little more time;
but, then, a painter does not value his work by the day.
A perfect thing is a perfect thing, whether large or small, Whistler
would frequently say. In the matter of prices he was obliged to yield
somewhat to custom, and ask more for large pictures than for small, but
he did so reluctantly and intermittently, with the natural result that
dealers, who screen pictures as the plasterer does his gravel, could do
nothing with him.
* * * * *
Of late years, with a demand far beyond any possible supply, his prices
advanced; but where a Degas, for instance, would sell for five, ten, or
fifteen thousand dollars, a Whistler of incomparably greater beauty
would sell for a third or a fifth the amount,--proof of what the
co-operation of the dealer can do.
Some years ago he showed a visitor several heads of Italian children,
each about ten or twelve, by sixteen or eighteen inches in size. With
them was a three-quarter length of one of the children. They were all
superb bits of portraiture, and akin to the “Little Rose, Lyme Regis,”
in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
The visitor was eager to get one or more of the pictures. After
considerable pressure, he said:
“I think they ought to be worth six hundred guineas each; don’t
you?”
“And the large one?” said the visitor.
“Oh, the same. That is no more important than the small.”
“Very well. May I have all four?”
“Dear me! You don’t want them all?”
“If you will let me have them.”
“But--” and then the struggle began, “I must look them over; they
are not quite finished.”
“But, surely, these two are finished.”
“Yes, I might let those go by-and-bye, but not now.”
“Will you send them to me?”
“Yes, certainly, after I have gone over them again.”
“I will leave a check.”
“God bless me, no! You must not do that. It will be time enough to
send a check after you receive the little pictures.”
Needless to say, the pictures were never received. They had just been
finished, and he could not bring himself to part with them. It was not a
matter of money at all,--likely as not he sold them later for less,--but
it was always next to impossible to get him to part with recent work. If
he happened to have on hand a picture five or ten years old, possibly
that could be bought and taken away, but anything in which he was
interested at the time he would not let go.
* * * * *
In 1894 he exhibited three small marines, which he had painted off-shore
while the boatman steadied
[Illustration]
his boat. They were fresh and crisp,--so good that a great painter of
marines said of them in the exhibition, “They over-topped everything
about them.”
Two were sold, and he showed the third to an American who came to
the studio. The caller said at once he would be only too glad to
take it at the price named; the matter was apparently closed, and
the buyer sailed for home, leaving a friend to get the picture.
A day or two after, Whistler stood looking long and earnestly at
the little marine, saying half to himself:
“It is good, isn’t it?”
Then he took the canvas out of the frame, and said:
“I think it needs touching up a little.”
Another pause, then:
“Do you know, I believe I won’t let this go just yet. I want to go
over it once more. You know, I can send your friend something else
next winter,--something that he may like better. And if he doesn’t
like it, why, he can return it.”
“But, Mr. Whistler, he wants this little marine. There is not much
to do upon it, is there?”
“No--o; but, then, you see----”
“Well, why not give it the last touches now, and let him have it.
If you do not send him this, I am afraid he will never have one of
your pictures.”
“Oh, yes, he will; next winter----”
“But next winter others will come in when we are not here, and buy
from you whatever you have.”
“Well, we will see.”
And only persistent urgings, day after day, even after a draft on London
had been forced upon him, induced him to ship the painting.
At no time was there any question of price or money involved; he simply
did not wish to part with the last of his three marines.
It was not until about 1890, and after, that Whistler’s paintings began
to sell at anything like their real worth. To his credit be it said, his
work was never “popular.”
By his independence, his seeming defiance of all conventional and
academic notions in his art, his eccentricities, and his lack of
commercial instincts he managed, at a very early period in his career,
to alienate,--
Dealers,
Painters, and
Public,
the three factors upon which commercial success depends.
* * * * *
“A millionaire--one who was getting up an art-gallery--went to
Whistler’s studio and glanced casually at the pictures.
“‘How much for the lot?’ he asked, with the confidence of one who owns
gold mines.
“‘Your millions,’ said Whistler.
“‘What!’
“‘My posthumous prices.’ And the painter added, ‘Good-morning.’”
_X_
_The School of Carmen--In Search of Health--Chelsea once more--The End._
To please Madame Carmen Rossi, who as a child had been one of his best
models, Whistler consented in 1897 to criticise the work of such
students as might attend her school. As a result Carmen’s atelier was
for the time being the most distinguished in Paris, and it was not
uncommon to see carriages with coachmen and footmen in livery before the
door on the days that Whistler was expected.
As he passed about among the pupils he seldom praised and was never
enthusiastic. He would sometimes stand many minutes before a canvas that
merited his attention and would suggest changes and improvements; and
now and then he took a brush and made the alterations himself,
remarking, if the student were a young woman, “Now you have a Whistler
all to your charming self.”
The story is told that once he stopped before a very brilliant canvas,
and exclaimed, “Hideous! hideous!” The student said, somewhat proudly,
that she had taken private lessons from Bouguereau, and he blandly
inquired, “Bouguereau, Bouguereau,--who is Bouguereau?”
A pupil has printed some reminiscences of those days:[47]
“Usually Mr. Whistler came once a week to criticise us, and on
those days the class, numbering anywhere from fifteen to forty, had
been instructed to adopt a certain respectful mode of bearing on
the arrival of the master; so, when the concierge threw wide the
door and formally announced, ‘Monsieur Whistler,’ every student had
risen to return his ceremonious salutation. Vividly I recall the
scene: a man of not much more than medium stature, but so slight as
to give the impression, when standing apart from others, of being
much taller; dressed entirely in black, even to the suéde gloves;
every garment immaculate in fit and condition; a little red rosette
of the Legion of Honor of France forming the only spot of color
about him until a faint flush rose to his cheek as he greeted the
class with kindly smile.
“Then, as _massier_ (or monitor, in charge of the class), he passed
me his long, black, fur-lined coat and tall, straight-brimmed
hat,--those well-known targets for the caricaturist,--and began his
criticism by inspecting every drawing and weighing its merits--if
any there were, as only too rarely happened--before uttering a
word. This silent inspection finished, Mr. Whistler usually asked
for a palette,--preferably mine, because it was patterned after his
own, and made him ‘feel at home,’ as he expressed it,--and then,
without removing his gloves, painted a few strokes here and there
on some of the pupils’ work. Even in the matter of a palette he
evinced marked sentiment. A carelessly kept one was, above all, his
particular abhorrence, and generally elicited some such remark as
the following: ‘My friends, have you noticed the way in which a
musician cares for his violin--how beautiful it is? how well kept?
how tenderly handled? Your palette is your instrument, its colors
the notes, and upon it you play your symphonies.’
“As an instructor he was courteous to each pupil, but naturally
most interested in those who followed his precepts closest.
Sometimes he jested at the expense of a luckless pupil. I remember
an amusing instance. Smoking was prohibited on the days for
criticism, since our master believed it clouded the atelier and in
some degree obscured a view of the model. One day, upon entering,
Mr. Whistler noticed an Englishman, much addicted to his huge
cigars, who continued puffing away contentedly during the
‘criticism.’ Mr. Whistler turned quickly, asking me why his wishes
were not enforced; but before I could frame a reply he had
addressed our British friend, saying, ‘Er--my dear sir, I know you
do not smoke to show disrespect to my request that the students
should refrain from smoking on the days I come to them, nor would
you desire to infringe upon the rules of the atelier--but--er--it
seems to me--er--that when you are painting--er--you might possibly
become so absorbed in your work as to--er--well--let your cigar go
out.’ I often remarked a whimsical affectation of Mr. Whistler in
his manner of speech with different pupils in his class,--we were a
diverse lot from many lands, Americans and English predominating.
If criticising an American, for instance, Mr. Whistler’s choice of
language, and in some cases his accent, would become markedly
English in form; while in addressing an Englishman he would adopt
the Yankee drawl, sometimes adding a touch of local slang. I
subsequently learned that these were his customary tactics, even in
society, but in class criticism he always addressed us in French.”
His methods of teaching were original. He laid little stress on drawing.
He hated and despised academic treatment. He wanted the pupil to paint.
A few careful charcoal strokes on the canvas as a guide, the rest to be
drawn in with brush and color. And he preached simplicity,--as few tones
as possible, as low as possible. But it is painful to record that the
endeavors of a certain proportion of the class to attempt the
achievements of the master in this respect resulted in a unique crop of
posters. The constant theme of his discourse was “mixtures.” He advised
a pupil to get first on his palette a correct and sufficient mixture of
each tone required for his picture. Often he would give a long criticism
without so much as glancing at the canvas,--a criticism on the mixtures
he found on the pupil’s palette; and he himself would work indefinitely
at the colors, and all the while talking, till it appeared to him to be
satisfactory. “And then,” says an enthusiastic young artist, “when he
did take up some of the color and transfer it to the canvas, why, it
would just sing.”
“One day on entering the class-room he discovered that a red
background had been arranged behind the model. He was horrified,
and directed the students to put up something duller in tone.
“Then he scraped out the red paint on a pupil’s canvas and
proceeded to mix and lay on a new background. Somehow the red would
show through, and he found it difficult to satisfy himself with the
effect he produced. He mixed and studied and scraped, working
laboriously, surrounded by a group of admiring students. Finally,
he remarked:
“‘I suppose you know what I’m trying to do?’
“‘Oh, yes, sir,’ they chorused.
“‘Well, it’s more than I know myself,’ he grimly replied.”
It is to be hoped that his epigrammatic utterances which hung on the
walls of the Carmen Rossi school have been preserved, for they would be
valuable additions to the “Propositions” and “Ten o’Clock” already
published.
With none of the instincts of the teacher, he in time lost interest in
the school. After a year or two his visits became infrequent, and upon
leaving Paris his connection ceased.
* * * * *
The studio in Notre Dame des Champs and the home on the Rue du Bac were
closed a few years after the death of Mrs. Whistler, and he made his
home once more in Chelsea, at 74 Cheyne Walk, with frequent excursions
to the Continent.
In the winter of 1901 he was at Ajaccio, and he wrote to a friend: “You
will be surprised at this present address. But it’s all
right,--‘Napoleon and I, you know.’”
In another letter to the same friend, speaking of a public official with
whom he had some legal transactions, he remarks: “Say that I know how
devotedly kind he has been in his care of me, but the care of the state
overwhelms him. You cannot serve the republic ... and Whistler.”
* * * * *
For many years his heart had troubled him, and towards the last the
warnings came more frequently and persistently. The year before his
death he was quite ill at The Hague, and one of the London papers
printed the following of a semi-obituary flavor:
“Mr. Whistler is so young in spirit that his friends must have read
with surprise the Dutch physician’s pronouncement that the present
illness is due to ‘advanced age.’ In England sixty-seven is not exactly
regarded as ‘advanced age;’ but even for the gay ‘butterfly’ time does
not stand still, and some who are unacquainted with the details of Mr.
Whistler’s career, though they may know his work well, will be surprised
to hear that he was exhibiting at the Academy forty-three years ago. His
contributions to the exhibition of 1859 were ‘Two Etchings from Nature,’
and at intervals during the following fourteen or fifteen years Mr.
Whistler was represented at the Academy by a number of works, both
paintings and etchings. In 1863 his contributions numbered seven in all,
and in 1865 four. Among his Academy pictures of 1865 was the famous
‘Little White Girl,’[48] the painting that attracted so much attention
at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. This picture--rejected at the Salon of
1863--was inspired, though the fact seems to have been forgotten of
late, by the following lines of Swinburne:
“‘Come snow, come wind or thunder
High up in air,
I watch my face and wonder
At my bright hair, etc., etc.’”
The item called forth the following characteristic correction, dated
from The Hague:
“SIR: I feel it no indiscretion to speak of my ‘convalescence’
since you have given it official existence.
[Illustration]
“May I therefore acknowledge the tender little glow of health
induced by reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the
flattering attention paid me by your gentleman of ready wreath and
quick biography.
“I cannot, as I look at my improving self with daily satisfaction,
really believe it all; still it has helped to do me good. And it is
with almost sorrow that I must beg you, perhaps, to put back into
its pigeon-hole, for later on, this present summary, and replace it
with something preparatory--which, doubtless, you have also ready.
“This will give you time, moreover, for some correction,--if really
it be worth while. But certainly the ‘Little White Girl,’ which was
not rejected at the Salon of ’63, was, I am forced to say, not
‘inspired by the following lines of Swinburne,’ for the one simple
reason that those lines were only written, in my studio, after the
picture was painted. And the writing of them was a rare and
graceful tribute from the poet to the painter--a noble recognition
of one work by the production of a nobler one.
“Again, of ‘the many tales concerning the hanging, at the Academy,
of the well-known portrait of the artist’s mother, now at the
Luxembourg,’ one is true--let us trust your gentleman may have time
to find it out--that I may correct it. I surely may always
hereafter rely on the _Morning Post_ to see that no vulgar Woking
joke reach me.
“It is my marvellous privilege, then, to come back, as who should
say, while the air is still warm with appreciation, affection, and
regret, and to learn in how little I had offended.