Rose and Gold: "Pretty Nellie Brown"

Though he had resided in Paris and London since 1855, Massachusetts-born James McNeill Whistler became a household name in the United States, where the persona he created for himself as a witty and caustic aesthete in café society equaled his reputation as one of the most advanced painters of his time. His example lured many American artists to choose an expatriate life in the fashionable capitals of Europe. The title of this portrait of the daughter of one of Whistler’s London patrons indicates that a pleasing arrangement of subtle color values, not a scrupulous likeness of the sitter, was the artist’s true aim. Such ambitions typically required considerable effort. Begun in late 1895, the painting had reached near completion, as "Rose and Brown," by the summer of 1897. The artist continued, nevertheless, to work on the portrait until May 1900, when he wrote to his patron of the now-finished work, retitled "Little Nellie-Rose and Red." The title was again changed for an exhibition in Boston in 1904.