James McNeill Whistler

Unfinished Study of a French Girl

Date c.1895-1896
Materials Oil on canvas
Dimensions 62.9 cm x 46.9 cm
Marks None
Further information GLAHA 46338.
Andrew McLaren Young, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1980 (433, plate 284).

Note The sitter may have been the grand-daughter of the French poet and writer Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897). Her face is painted boldly. Look how the dabs of paint suggesting her features have not been smoothed together. Her auburn hair looks wild and her expression appears sullen. As the title says, this is an unfinished portrait showing just the face of the sitter. A fur collar can be made out, but nothing of the rest of her dress. Notice how an olive green background has been started at the top but not finished. The rough white line across the bottom of the canvas may have been an accident or a sign that Whistler meant to have the canvas reduced in size. The canvas is of a fine weave, and is primed a deep grey.