Alice Butt (c.1895)

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill (1834-1903)

Alice Butt
c.1895
Oil on canvas, 51.7 x 38.1 cm
National Gallery of ArtWashington

Little is known about this painting’s subject, whom Whistler identified as “a little child called ‘Alice Butt‘—charming—quite Italian in type.” Set against a red background, Alice Butt is noteworthy for her disheveled hair and full, red lips; she looks directly at the viewer. In the 1890s, Whistler often toured London‘s poorest neighborhoods in search of engaging subjects to paint. He was particularly drawn to young children, whose innocent faces and tattered clothing appealed to the artist’s sense of the picturesque. The result was a series of full-face bust studies of young street children, of which Alice Butt—a vivid and adeptly painted portrait—is an outstanding example. Until the publication of the Whistler catalogue raisonné in 1980, this painting was identified only as “Head of a Girl.” The authors determined that it was one of two nearly identical portraits of the same sitter that had both been stolen from Whistler‘s Paris studio in the late 1890s; they speculated that the other, more spontaneously executed portrait may have been a preparatory study for this painting. Whistler eventually recovered the paintings in 1901 and they remained in his studio until his death two years later. 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. (NGA)

See also:

• Butt, Alice