Miss Agnes Mary Alexander by James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834

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Miss Agnes Mary Alexander

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

c.1873

Oil on canvas

Support: 1924 x 1016 mm; frame: 2215 x 1300 x 100 mm

Collection: Tate Britain, London

Bequeathed by W. C. Alexander 1950; Reference N05964

Agnes Mary Alexander was the eldest daughter of W. C. Alexander, the successful London banker who had probably met Whistler through their shared passion for Japanese art. As the gallery label of 2010 says, he had bought Whistler’s first Nocturne, Nocturne: Blue and Silver — Chelsea, and had commissioned him to make portraits of some of his daughters. [Commentary continues below.]

Image kindly released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) licence. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Commentary and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee.

Whistler adopted a dark colour scheme in painting Agnes Mary (called May), making the portrait a great contrast to that of her younger sister, Cicely: "More simply and starkly conceived, May emerges out of rich shadows, something Whistler copied from the Spanish old master painter Velásquez. The tightly restricted harmony of colours is raised only for the group of yellow flowers" (gallery label). Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell give some account of the process:

Whistler was as minute in his directions for the portrait of Miss May Alexander [as for her sister]. He again explained his scheme for the dress; he recommended to Mrs. Alexander a milliner who sold wonderful "picture hats"; he suggested that he should paint the portrait in Mrs. Alexander's drawing-room at Campden Hill, so that he could see the effect of the picture in the surroundings where it was to hang, and this was done. But the portrait remains a sketch, of a girl in riding-habit drawing on her gloves; at her side is a pot of flowers, the one complete passage in the picture. He made a number of sketches in oils, chalk, pen and ink, of the children he was to paint, and Mr. Alexander has several of these. But only the Arrangement in Grey and Green [i.e. young Cecily's portrait] was finished. [175]

Theodore Duret explains that the painting of May Alexander had to be suspended, "and could not be continued, on account of an illness of the model; although in a considerably advanced state, it remains an unfinished work" (30-31). For this reason, it is less well known and the painting referred to by the title of "Miss Alexander" is that of Cicely. Nevertheless, the two make an interesting contrast, and this second one is close enough to completion to be considered alongside the earlier one.

The Alexanders had eight children altogether, six girls and three boys. As well as the paintings of Cicely and May, there is another of their sister Grace, and several sketches of these three. May remained unmarried, but lived full life as an independent woman. She "trained as a nurse at University College Hospital in London and became interested in housing and social issues. She wrote Some Kensington Problems in 1904 and was a Guardian of the Poor for Kensington. She was also a collector" ("Agnes Mary Alexander").

Related Material

Harmony in Grey and Green: Portrait of Miss Cicely Alexander

Bibliography

"Agnes Mary Alexander, 1862-1950." The Correspondence of James MacNeill Whistler (University of Glasgow). Web. 4 February 2018.

Duret, Theodore. Whistler. Trans. Frank Rutter. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1907; London: Grant Richards, 1907. New York Public Library copy made available online by the Internet Archive. Web. 4 February 2018.

Gallery label. Tate. Web. 4 February 2018.

Pennell, Elizabeth Robins and Joseph. Life of James McNeill Whistler. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Lippincott / London: Heinemann, 1908. Contributed by Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library. Web. 4 February 2018.

Created 4 February 2018