James McNeill Whistler

Caricature of F. R. Leyland

Date c. May-June 1879
Materials Pen and dark brown / black ink on laid paper
Dimensions 17.4 cm x 11.2 cm
Marks Signed with a butterfly with a barbed tail at the lower centre; inscribed in ink by Whistler: "It occurs to "F.R.L. frill - that he will keep an eye on the assets of the White House."
Further information GLAHA 46079.
Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonne, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995 (720).

Note When Whistler was made bankrupt in 1879 he owed his patron, the Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, a lot of money. The two men had quarrelled earlier in 1877 over the cost of the Peacock Room. Whistler considered Leyland to be miserly and made a number of unkind caricatures of him. In this drawing Whistler suggested his meanness through the scrawny face, hunched shoulders and thin, lean body. Notice that Leyland is shown wearing a frilly shirt. Whistler particularly ridiculed him for his love of frilly shirts. Look at Whistler’s butterfly signature. It is shown with a barbed tail suggesting that Whistler the butterfly was not merely concerned with beauty but could give a nasty sting.

Related works YMSM 97, YMSM 178