Page 18 - whistler

Charlotte Mason Picture Study Aid Whistler

Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1

(also known as “Portrait of the Artist's Mother” or “Whistler’s Mother”)

1871
Oil on canvas
144.3 cm × 162.4 cm
Musee d’Orsay, Paris

KEY TOPICS:

• The model was Whistler’s mother, Anna McNeill Whistler.

• In most paintings from this time, models usually stood. However, when Whistler’s model

was unable to come to his studio, he asked his mother to pose for him instead (“Mother I
want you to stand for me! it is what I have long intended & desired to do, to take your

Portrait”). Being sixty-seven at the time, she was only able to stand for a little while (“I stood

bravely, two or three days whenever he was in the mood for studying me, but realized it to
be too great an effort”), so he allowed her to sit instead. (Sutherland)

• She is wearing the black clothing of a widow in mourning (her husband died in 1849).

(Sutherland) To the left is a curtain.

• In later years, when Whistler was complimented on how he made his mother seem

“luminous,” he said, “Yes, one does like to make one’s mummy just as nice as possible!”
(Sutherland)

• The picture in the background is Whistler’s “Black Lion Wharf” (page 11 of this picture

study). (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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