
Read the visual description
The head and shoulders of a young woman with gold-tinted, pale skin looks out over our right shoulder from against a tomato-red background in this vertical painting. The portrait is created with mostly visible, sinuous brushstrokes that make some details indistinct. With her body facing us, the woman nearly fills this composition. She looks in our direction with large, dark eyes under almost flat brows. She has an oval face, a long nose, and her full, slightly downturned coral-red lips are closed. Her chestnut-brown hair falls loosely down her back. Some locks pour over her left shoulder, to our right, and her hair is tucked behind her other ear. Her hair and clothing are especially loosely painted, so it is difficult to make out what she wears. An area of beige could be a scarf draped around her neck and down her front, or a dark, coffee-brown cloak could be open over a lighter garment beneath. The red background is painted with long, visible brushstrokes, and three dark brown spots are clustered against the background over her right shoulder, to our left.
National Gallery of Art · Painting
Alice Butt
James McNeill Whistler
- Date
- c. 1895
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall: 51.7 x 38.1 cm (20 3/8 x 15 in.) framed: 86.4 x 73 x 8.9 cm (34 x 28 3/4 x 3 1/2 in.)
- Classification
- Painting
- Accession number
- 1948.16.2
- Credit line
- Gift of Curt H. Reisinger
- Time span
- 1876 to 1900
- Department
- CAB
Subjects and terms
- painted surface
- girl
- portrait
- American
- Realist
- American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II [M-Z]
- Butt, Alice
Provenance
Stolen c. 1896 from Whistler's Paris studio; (A. Reid, Glasgow, Scotland); purchased April 1900 by J.J. Cowan, Edinburgh, Scotland; returned to Whistler 30 June 1901; probably returned c. April 1904 by Whistler's executrix R. Birnie Philip to J.J. Cowan; (A. Reid, Glasgow, Scotland); purchased December 1906 by (C. Vose & Sons, Boston); purchased 1908 by Hugo Reisinger [1856-1914], New York; his wife, Edmée Busch Reisinger [later Mrs. Charles E. Greenough, d. 1955], New York; her son, Curt H. Reisinger [d. 1964], New York; gift 1948 to NGA.
Inscription
center left with the artist's butterfly mark
NGA object ID 35081. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.