Whistler’s Lost Painting and its Copy

James McNeill Whistler’s painting The Three Girls 1867–76 (YMSM 088), the culmination of over a decade’s work, was never completed and is now lost.1 Its story includes two defining moments in Whistler’s life: the deterioration of his relationship with his patron Frederick Leyland, who commissioned the work, and Whistler’s bankruptcy in 1879, caused by the financial deficit he faced after his dispute with Leyland over the decoration of the latter’s London residence. The painting’s copy, Three Figures: Pink and Grey 1879 (YMSM 089; Tate N05971; fig.1), was later rejected by the artist who considered it an unfinished work unfit for public display. However, Whistler’s attempts in the 1890s to negotiate the painting’s return demonstrate his belief that he retained rights over his unfinished work.2 Situating the copy within the narrative of the original commission provides the context for its conception, while technical analysis provides evidence for Three Figures: Pink and Grey being developed beyond a direct copy. Preliminary technical analysis of Girl with Cherry Blossom 1867–79 (YMSM 090; fig.2) confirms it was once part of a larger composition that included all three figures, before it was cut down and reworked at a later date, adding to our understanding of its relationship to both The Three Girls and the copy Three Figures: Pink and Grey.

The commission for The Three Girls

Whistler was introduced to the art collector and ship owner Frederick Leyland (1831–1892) through the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1867.3 Whistler had recently returned from Valparaíso in Chile, an eight-month visit that had offered a much-needed separation from the ‘whirl of excitement of ambition and hopes and dissappointments [sic]’ that had engulfed him in London.4 He had a new direction for his painting and was at work on a series of oil sketches, of which six were later grouped and named the ‘Six projects’ by his biographers Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell.5 The Pennells suggested these had been commissioned as a decorative scheme for Leyland, although both the commission and the grouping of the sketches has subsequently been debated by scholars.6 However, at least one full-scale oil painting was certainly commissioned by Leyland, to be based on the oil sketch The White Symphony: Three Girls 1867–9 (YMSM 087; fig.3).7

By the summer of 1867 Whistler had begun developing the sketch into the full-scale painting The Three Girls.8 Although the work is lost, contemporary accounts, figure studies, the oil sketch and the copy, Three Figures: Pink and Grey, hereafter referred to as Three Figures, give a clear idea of its appearance. The painter and lithographer Thomas Robert Way recalled:9

This commission marked the start of a period of intense work. It was a re-education for Whistler, one in which the influence of the painter Albert Moore has been widely acknowledged.11 Parallels have been drawn between the composition of Three Figures and Moore’s Pomegranates 1866 (fig.4).12 Both artists demonstrate influences from ancient Greece and Japan – drawing on the Parthenon Sculptures and eighteenth-century Japanese woodblock prints.13 There are notable similarities between Whistler’s composition and prints by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Chōbunsai Eishi (1756–1829; fig.5).14 Whistler also shared with Moore the practice of making numerous figure studies on paper, pinning these to his studio walls (fig.6).15

The commission was no easy task. Whistler wrote: ‘I have been undergoing this education for more than a year now … but what difficulties!’16 His problems were also financial: in January, May and October 1867 he wrote to Leyland for funds to help him complete The Three Girls.17 By spring 1869 the artist’s mother, Anna Matilda, was asked by Whistler to intervene, and she wrote to Leyland of her son’s plight: ‘he has only tried too hard to make it the perfection of Art, preying upon his mind unceasingly’, adding that ‘it has become more & and more impossible to satisfy himself’.18 Whistler described his struggle to Thomas Winans, another of his patrons, that autumn:

This was not the first timeWhistler had experienced difficulties finishing a painting and had used his time-consuming technique of scraping, rubbing off and starting again. As early as 1864 he wrote to his fellow artist Henri Fantin-Latour: ‘I produce very little … it is difficult! and I wipe off so much!’.20 Thomas Robert Way recalled the story of Moore visiting The Three Girls and criticising some aspect of it, after which ‘the next day Whistler was found with the picture scraped out ready to begin again!’21

In the years between 1869 and 1872 Whistler appears not to have worked on The Three Girls. In 1872 he resumed work on the painting and also designed its frame.22 By 1876 the painting had an intended home: it was to hang opposite the artist’s full-length portrait La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine 1863–5 (YMSM 050; National Museum of Asian Art, Washington) on the south wall of the ornate dining room of Leyland’s house at 49 Princes Gate in Kensington, London.23 Whistler’s extensive redecoration of the room, which became known as the Peacock Room 1876–7 (YMSM 178; National Museum of Asian Art, Washington), included a decorative scheme of peacock designs adorning the walls, ceiling and shutters of the house. However, the ensuing quarrel with Leyland over the cost of the room’s decoration meant that The Three Girls was not displayed as Whistler had envisaged, and in November 1876 the south wall was instead occupied by the mural The Rich Peacock and the Poor Peacock, painted by Whistler to immortalise his dispute with Leyland.24

The Three Girls remained in Whistler’s possession, but when Leyland demanded the painting along with three others that he had commissioned and paid for but never received, Whistler retorted that the work was still unfinished, and as such he was unwilling to deliver it.25

The bankruptcy and the disappearance of The Three Girls

By the end of the decade Whistler was under severe financial strain. Although he held Leyland responsible for his predicament, following his patron’s refusal to pay for the Peacock Room, the expenses of both Whistler’s libel case against the art critic John Ruskin and the building of his new residence in Chelsea, the White House, alongside his significant personal outgoings, undoubtedly contributed to his debts.26 When Whistler was declared bankrupt on 6 May 1879, James Waddell was appointed as the receiver in the proceedings, and three of Whistler’s chief creditors, the art dealer Charles Howell, the printer Thomas Way and Leyland, were appointed as the Committee of Inspection to oversee arrangements.27 Whistler’s bankruptcy marks the beginning of a period of confusion, as paintings in his possession, including The Three Girls, were claimed by creditors, sold at auction, passed to friends for safekeeping or destroyed by Whistler.28 As a result, the subsequent whereabouts of many works which had been in Whistler’s studio during this time remains unknown.29

In the case of The Three Girls, which Whistler had worked on over many years, it is possible that he may have begun and abandoned multiple versions of the painting during this time, meaning that the composition might have existed on multiple canvases. Thomas Robert Way recorded that Whistler started the composition ‘on more than one canvas, with the figures about the size of life’, and mentioned another version traced onto the reverse of Arrangement in Black and Grey: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother 1871 (YMSM 101; Musée d’Orsay, Paris).30 Moore is also known to have used multiple primed canvases as colour studies alongside his paintings, but with many Whistler paintings lost in this period, it is uncertain whether Whistler might have done the same for The Three Girls.31 Conversely, contemporaneous accounts also describe Whistler scraping or rubbing down the canvas and then adding new paint layers, a practice he undertook frequently throughout his career, which might suggest that a single, heavily reworked canvas could be conceivable for The Three Girls.32 Either way, the last documented viewings of The Three Girls before Whistler’s bankruptcy were by Thomas Robert Way, who saw the unfinished painting in Whistler’s studio in 1878.33 The painting was also seen by a journalist visiting the White House in March 1879.34

Several idiosyncrasies of Whistler’s bankruptcy proceedings add further confusion to the whereabouts of his paintings at this time: when Whistler was declared bankrupt, his lawyer, George Lewis, advised him to sell everything and to use the friends among his creditors to claim canvases against money they were owed, since ‘canvases thus claimed could be [later] returned to Whistler as a “gift”’.35 This encouraged Whistler to deposit his paintings with his friends and family members, leading to a lack of clarity about what was sent where.36 Whistler also received permission from Waddell to ‘destroy unfinished work, that it might not be displayed to the public’, and assurance that anything copied or made after 6 May 1879 would belong to Whistler himself.37

Whistler is known to have destroyed canvases he was dissatisfied with throughout his life; however, following Waddell’s guidance, in order to stop paintings going to his creditors, he did so most extensively around the time of his bankruptcy.38 He is variously described as ‘defacing’ or ‘cutting’, and his canvases as ‘scratched’ or even ‘burnt’. In some cases, Whistler cut works into fragments; in others, he painted over them.39 Surviving examples range from the portrait of Leyland’s youngest daughter, The Blue Girl: Portrait of Miss Elinor Leyland 1873–5 (YMSM 111; National Museum of Asian Art,  Washington), which was cut into fragments, to the unfinished portrait of the eldest daughter of William Cleverly Alexander, Miss May Alexander 1874–5 (YMSM 127; Tate N05964), which remained intact but in poor condition.40 The bankruptcy papers record that Whistler owed Leyland the significant sum of £350, and Leyland may also have been eligible to claim his paintings in payment, including The Three Girls.41 It is highly likely that Whistler would have defaced or in some part destroyed the painting to avoid this.

Between May and September 1879 paintings moved in and out of the White House. They were claimed by Whistler’s creditors; lodged with friends and his brother, William Whistler; and sold, both in the auction of Whistler’s property at the White House on the 7 May 1879 (fig.7), and at a later sale held at Sotheby’s on 12 February 1880.42 A number of paintings appear to have remained at the house awaiting collection by Waddell’s clerks for the Sotheby’s sale after Whistler left for Venice around 14 September, including The Three Girls. In February 1880 the artist Matthew Robinson Elden wrote to Whistler describing that the paintings left at the house had been cut from their stretchers by Waddell’s clerks: ‘The clerk who fetched them having orders to take all canvasses & to leave the frames &c to you – this is perhaps good as regards the greek [sic] girls, it may fetch less – to buy in’.43 ‘The greek girls’ refers to The Three Girls, so at this stage it would seem the painting was intact, although off its stretcher and presumably rolled. However, in March 1880 a series of letters from Whistler attest to his confusion and concern over the location of The Three Girls, which sheds light on both its condition at the time and Whistler’s recollection of making a copy of the painting before he left for Venice.

Whistler was aware by March that Waddell had been making enquiries about the paintings that had been deposited at his brother’s house in Wimpole Street. Whistler seems to have been informed that The Three Girls was now among the paintings at William’s house. The artist wrote to his sister-in-law, Helen:

In this letter Whistler also mentions for the first time the copy of The Three Girls, Three Figures: Pink and Grey. Whistler writes that he made the copy after he was declared bankrupt, and therefore Three Figures should be his to keep. He repeats that he believed that The Three Girls had been left at the White House for Waddell to collect, describing the painting as ‘scratched and destroyed’. It is unlikely that at this time Whistler had cut The Three Girls into fragments if the two paintings could have been confused for one another, Whistler having written:

Later that month, Whistler wrote again to Helen, voicing his suspicions that the art dealer Charles Augustus Howell, who previously offered to secure The Three Girls for Whistler, had conspired with Leyland to take paintings from the White House before the Sotheby’s sale. These included The Three Girls and three satirical portraits that Whistler had painted of Leyland following their dispute over the Peacock Room.46 Whistler postulated that in doing so Leyland could destroy the satirical portraits and Howell could keep The Three Girls in pawn. Howell’s motive would be, Whistler wrote, to keep The Three Girls by pretending it was the copy of the painting. The real copy, Three Figures, Howell could then claim was the original painting Waddell was due.47 In the same letter to Helen, Whistler proposed that his brother should go to Waddell and attempt to resolve the matter:

Adding to the confusion of the whereabouts of Three Figures when Whistler left London, the art critic Harry Quilter, who purchased the White House on the 18 September 1879, recalled years later when Three Figures was on display at the Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell gallery in New Bond Street, that Quilter had seen it in the house among ‘a batch of clearly experimental canvases which he [Whistler] left after the sale upon the premises’, and which he had asked Whistler to remove.49 That Three Figures remained at the White House is confusing; however, Whistler had originally been uncertain as to why Three Figures was at his brother’s house in Wimpole Street, and it is possible he had indeed left the copy in the White House when he departed for Venice, and it was later moved by others to his brother’s house for safekeeping.50

On 12 April 1880 Elden wrote to Whistler clarifying what had in fact happened to The Three Girls: Wadell’s clerks had removed the painting from the White House; however, they had considered it valueless, presumably as a result of Whistler having defaced the painting, and therefore not included it in the Sotheby’s auction.51 Elden wrote that Way and Leyland convened to discuss the paintings:

This presents an important turn of events, as the wording ‘the picture too not being the one commissioned by him’ shows that the painting Leyland claimed was not the one he originally commissioned, but its copy, Three Figures. As both paintings were likely unrolled before him, it is possible that the defaced condition of The Three Girls influenced Leyland’s decision to claim the copy instead. The meeting was adjourned with no conclusion reached.

A final meeting was held a few days later, recounted by Thomas Way on the 15 April 1880, who wrote to William Whistler:

This letter presents two inconsistent decisions. The first is that Leyland conceded not to claim either The Three Girl or Three Figures; however, in an unexpected turn of events, this is overridden by the decision of Lewis to uphold Leyland’s earlier claim to the copy, Three Figures. That Three Figures passed to Leyland was also later indicated by Thomas Robert Way: ‘Leyland had commissioned the picture, and at the time of the bankruptcy claimed the unfinished canvas … This, I believe, was the same canvas which was afterwards shown at the memorial exhibition in London’.54 Only Three Figures was included in that exhibition, thus supporting the interpretation that Leyland claimed the copy and not The Three Girls. Whistler’s patron Alfred Chapman, who eventually bought Three Figures, also wrote to the collector Charles Lang Freer that the painting had come to him via Leyland, ‘Leyland having seized it and afterwards sold it for a trifle to a dealer to spite Jimmy’.55

What, then, happened to The Three Girls? Some of the rolled canvases that Thomas Way purchased at the time of the bankruptcy were returned to Whistler years later, but likely not this work.56 Girl with Cherry Blossom is widely agreed to be a reworked fragment from the central part of the composition, although whether this was cut from a single canvas Whistler used for The Three Girls or, if Whistler made use of multiple canvases for the composition over the years, cut from an earlier version, remains unknown. Girl with Cherry Blossom is not listed in either the auction of Whistlers possessions on 7 May 1879, or in the later Sotheby’s sale. Therefore, when the picture was cut, repainted and sold equally remains unresolved.57 However, technical analysis of Three Figures and Girl with Cherry Blossom has allowed for further comparisons between the two paintings to be made.58

Materials and techniques

Three Figures is painted on a plain-weave, coarse canvas averaging 7.3 weft threads and 7.8 warp threads per centimetre.59 The tacking margins – the edges of the original canvas which extended around the sides of the stretcher – were mostly cut away when the painting was glue-paste lined onto a new fabric support at an unknown date. However, pronounced cusping – the distortion of the canvas weave from the points where it was stretched and tacked to the stretcher – on all four sides indicates that the composition was not significantly altered from its original format. Whistler wrote that the copy of The Three Girls was on the ‘same size’ canvas as the original commission.60 Girl with Cherry Blossom is painted on a plain-weave, fine canvas averaging 18.5 weft threads and 17.7 warp threads per centimetre.61 The canvas has been cut down on all four sides, evidenced by the continuation of the composition onto the tacking margins. Whistler continued to vary the weight of his canvases throughout his career, so the difference in canvas between these two works unfortunately does not give particular insight into their dating.

Three Figures shows an overall layer of artist-applied ground of a bright blue colour (fig.8).62 This layer is composed of lead white, strontium-containing barium sulphate, chalk, silicate-based extender, Prussian blue, a pre-mixed green containing Prussian blue and cadmium yellow, viridian and orange ochre.63 The unusual quantity and variety of extenders – additives included within the paint to reduce the quantity of more costly components, such as pigments – suggests cheaper artists‘ materials. The complexity and bright colour of the ground mixture is unusual in Whistler’s practice, and it is possible the canvas was hastily primed with what paint he had available, which would be conceivable for a painting made in his last days at the White House. The blue ground is followed by a dark grey imprimatura – an overall application of paint following the ground – that mostly covers the underlying ground colour. The imprimatura contains lead white, chalk, strontium-containing barium sulphate, silicate-based extender and carbon black instead of Whistler’s usual bone black. Girl with Cherry Blossom shows a grey ground which is more typical of Whistler’s practice, and a ground colour he returned to throughout his career. Its ground layer contains lead white, chalk, bone black and silicates, and is followed by a grey imprimatura containing lead white and, similarly to the copy, carbon black.64

Whistler’s palette for Three Figures includes lead white, bone black, vermilion, Prussian blue, traces of synthetic ultramarine, cadmium yellow, madder, and purplish-red and orange ochres. In all samples the range of pigments employed within paint mixtures is quite limited. The medium was found to contain only drying oil.65 The overall appearance of the painting is dark. While the colours themselves have not altered, the paint medium may have darkened, possibly due to the addition of driers. The blue and grey preparatory layers contribute to the overall cool tone of the painting. A sample taken from an area of flesh paint in Girl with Cherry Blossom was found to include lead white, bone black, gypsum and iron oxide pigments, including umber in later paint layers. In addition, materials inferred to be present using scanning X-radiograph fluorescence (scanning XRF) in other areas of the composition include vermilion, cobalt blue, a zinc-based pigment and a barium-containing material.

Although some areas in Three Figures were rapidly executed, changes in the painting are evidence that it is more than a simple copy, albeit left at an early stage of development. In parts of the composition Whistler significantly diluted his paint, for example in the blue background, the central red pot and the blossoms, where paint has pooled and dripped (fig.9). Fluid paint would have enabled more rapid execution due to its faster drying time and easier application, consistent with Whistler’s description of making a hasty copy in his final days at the White House. In contrast, the paint used for the figures has a thicker, buttery consistency, frequently rubbed back to expose the grey imprimatura beneath (fig.10). The X-radiograph shows little definition of the figures, also indicative of rubbing back and reworking in these areas (fig.11). Evidence of Whistler’s alterations to the composition as he worked is visible directly on the surface of the painting – for example in the drapery of the crouching figure, where flesh tones were painted over the cloth to change the position of the robes (fig.12) – and supported by infrared reflectography (IRR), which shows multiple small changes made to the position of the limbs and clothing of all three figures (fig.13a).

The paint application in Girl with Cherry Blossom is generally thinner with little impasto, but similarly rubbed back to expose the grey layers beneath. The overall layer structure of this painting is more complex, with the presence of many paint layers clear in cross-section. When this fragment was cut out from the larger composition the canvas was folded over the tacking edges on all four sides as it was re-stretched into the new format. The painting was subsequently extensively reworked, but this later painting campaign is restricted to the front face and does not extend onto the tacking margins. A cross-section taken from the tacking margin, therefore excluding the later reworking, shows numerous layers of paint, evidence of multiple painting sessions before the canvas was cut down (fig.14). As there is no clear distinction between the pigments used and the technique of paint application between the paint of the later reworking and the lower paint layers, it is not possible to draw conclusions about the date of the reworking. The presence of the reworking also makes it difficult to identify whether the lower paint layers have been in some way defaced as The Three Girls is thought to have been following Whistler’s bankruptcy.

X-radiography (fig.15) and scanning XRF (fig.16) of Girl with Cherry Blossom confirm the presence of a bending figure to the left, painted out in the later reworking.66 The remaining border of a parasol indicates that a standing figure was also originally present on the right. Both confirm that before the canvas was cut down, the composition closely resembled that of Three Figures and therefore also the composition of The Three Girls. In the reworking of the fragment however, many areas were altered, taking the composition further from Three Figures and Whistler’s original oil sketch for the composition The White Symphony: Three Girls. For example, purple decorations in the cloth awnings were painted out, as were many of the blossoms. The X-radiograph also shows that the profile of the figure’s face was, at an earlier stage, likely more similar to that in Three Figures (fig.17b and c).

Transfer process

Three Figures has grey painted tick marks on the imprimatura at its edges, evenly spaced at 57 millimetres, indicating that the stretched canvas was gridded to transfer the composition onto it (fig.18).67 Some tick marks have been lost through trimming of the tacking margins during the lining process, or are obscured by overlying paint, but enough remain to show that they were originally present on all four sides, but with no connecting lines across the composition. Perhaps temporary threads or thin string served the purpose instead.

Girl with Cherry Blossom also displays gridding, although the system is more complex. Calcium and iron distribution maps from scanning XRF each reveal a different series of mostly horizontal lines – remnants of two gridding systems employed across the picture plane (fig.19). Calcium-rich lines with slightly larger spacing most commonly occur at 65 millimetre intervals, though some additional lines are apparent in the area around the figure that do not match this grid; these were likely for an earlier stage of painting, possibly to copy the composition onto the canvas.68 Tick marks also occur along the top and bottom edges, similarly spaced at 65 millimetre intervals.69 In contrast, iron-rich lines are very consistently spaced at 58 millimetre intervals and correspond to dark red lines apparent upon close visual inspection.70 This grid is closer to the surface in the paint stratigraphy, perhaps suggesting a grid used to copy this composition onto another support. Interestingly, a high-resolution image also shows tick marks along some edges of the oil sketch The White Symphony: Three Girls, which appear to be on top of the paint, also suggesting a grid used to transfer from the oil sketch (fig.20).71

Comparison of the iron-rich grid lines in Girl with Cherry Blossom and the inferred grid lines suggested by the tick marks in Three Figures is challenging as the compositions do not align exactly. Although the intervals of the grids and the points at which they intersect the crouching figure are close, they do not appear to be an exact match. Overall, it is not possible to definitively link the two paintings as having been copied one from the other. Considering the composition overall, while some aspects correspond between the two paintings, such as the scale of the central figure, many features differ, notably the position of the model’s arms and the curvature of her back. Girl with Cherry Blossom is compositionally more compressed, the plant closer to the central figure and the space between parasol and plant narrower. In this respect, Three Figures and the oil sketch The White Symphony: Three Girls correspond more closely. Nonetheless, examination shows that gridding between versions of this composition was a key part of Whistler’s process, possibly influenced by the working practices of Moore.72

Beyond the bankruptcy

Little is known about the early history of Girl with Cherry Blossom. The industrialist and politician Charles Benjamin Bright McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway, who first purchased the painting, was acquainted with Whistler and owned two other works by him.73 What Whistler knew of the fragment and its subsequent life, however, is not recorded, and it was not exhibited during his lifetime. McLaren recalled purchasing the work ‘after [Whistler’s] bankruptcy from Dowdeswell, then of Chancery Lane’, indicating a purchase between 1879 and 1887.74 This account contradicts that of his daughter-in-law Christabel, Lady Aberconway, who recalled that he had made the purchase between 1874 and 1877.75 The earliest known photograph of Girl with Cherry Blossom was published in 1904, and by then the canvas was formatted as it is today.76

Following a period of uncertainty over the location of Three Figures after the bankruptcy, by 1886 it was owned by the engineer and art collector Alfred Chapman.77 In 1891 it appeared for sale at Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell’s gallery, much to Whistler’s distress. He wrote to Chapman, ‘Astonished & mortified to learn that you purchased notwithstanding my warning years ago’.78 He also sent a letter entitled ‘Self-criticism’ to the Pall Mall Gazette:

When the collector and writer Wallace L. Crowdy responded in the paper, questioning how any of Whistler’s work could be unfinished if the work of a master ‘is finished from its beginning’, Whistler retorted:80

Although Chapman eventually withdrew the painting from sale, he was impervious to Whistler’s pleas to return it to him.82 Chapman’s later explanation of the events was that Whistler’s response to the painting was influenced by the fact that he mistakenly thought it still belonged to Leyland: ‘when it was exhibited in Bond & Jimmy still thinking it was Leyland’s & that it was for sale disowned it, which he afterwards regretted in a letter to me when he knew’.83 This account is not corroborated, but it would fit with Leyland’s ‘claim’ to the copy being honoured by Lewis in 1880. It does, however, seem contradictory for Whistler to have regretted his public response according to Chapman, and yet have chosen to immortalise his exchange with Crowdy in his book The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1892).84

Whistler continued to advise against the sale of the painting in 1895 and 1900.85 While his letters focus on the unfair mark-up he believed Chapman had placed on his works, he also objected to an unfinished painting being in circulation without his consent. Whistler would later asserted ‘The ABSOLUTE RIGHT of the Artist to control the destiny of his handiwork – and, at all times, and in all circumstances, to refuse its delivery into unseemly and ridiculous keeping’.86 This was a right he exercised throughout his career, withholding paid-for paintings from their purchasers until he was satisfied with them, and regarding neither public exhibition nor delivery to the owner as necessarily implying a work was finished.87 Walter Sickert later criticised this tendency, writing: ‘Whistler’s failing and the reason why Whistler did not do more and do it better was because he could never leave a thing alone’.88

Three Figures was not exhibited again during Whistler’s lifetime. It was included in the memorial exhibition of 1905 and eventually sold the same year.89

Conclusions

When Whistler left for Venice in 1879, The Three Girls had likely been defaced but not cut down. Whether multiple canvases for the composition had existed, or only a single ‘original’ canvas remains unclear, leaving many scenarios possible. If Girl with Cherry Blossom is a fragment from a single canvas used for The Three Girls, it may have passed to Dowdeswell, possibly through Howell, after the bankruptcy proceedings, and possibly back through Whistler, though the point at which it was cut down and reworked remains unknown.90 If it instead comes from an earlier version of the composition painted on a different canvas, it might have been cut down and repainted at an earlier date, possibly by 1878 when Howell was recorded as purchasing a ‘large picture of apple blossoms’, or even earlier, as suggested by Christabel, Lady Aberconway.91 Alternatively, it may have been sold at an unknown date as an unrecorded fragment.92 After either scenario, eventually making its way to Dowdeswell.

In charting the interconnected history of The Three Girls, Three Figures and Girl with Cherry Blossom, Whistler’s rejection of Three Figures must be considered in the context of what The Three Girls represented within this critical period of his work. Conceived as the conclusive expression of his aesthetic ideals, and regarded by some contemporaries as the ‘highest point in his artistic career’, it latterly must also have represented an extraordinary struggle.93 One can imagine that if The Three Girls could never achieve the perfection he required, the exhibition of the ‘rough’, unfinished copy would indeed have been, as he wrote, mortifying.94 Whistler frequently demonstrated that he believed he reserved the right of ownership over works he considered not yet complete. Furthermore, he may well have been aware that Three Figures had links to Leyland, the very person he held responsible for his bankruptcy. It is perhaps unsurprising that he was so forceful in his refutation of the copy, both for what it was and what it represented.

Technical analysis supports the interpretation of Girl with Cherry Blossom as cut down from a larger composition that closely resembled Three Figures. It shows evidence of multiple painting sessions before it was cut down, and extensive reworking to alter the composition after cutting down. Examination reveals a difference in the support, ground and painting techniques between the fragment and the copy, but some overlap in the use of pigments. Comparison of the grid marks and grid lines on Three Figures and Girl with Cherry Blossom reveals a similarity in the intervals and placement of the grid in some instances, but overall it does not indicate a direct match. It does, however, show that Whistler used gridding extensively to transfer the composition between different supports.

Examination of Three Figures shows it to be a work in progress that might have developed independently had it remained in Whistler’s possession. Its unfinished condition offers insights into his working methods, particularly the continual adjustment, rubbing back and reworking of the surface, even at the initial stages of painting. Despite Whistler’s damning words, Three Figures is fundamental to our understanding of the original painting The Three Girls and remains the most complete, full-scale surviving example of the composition which concerned Whistler for over a decade.

Whistler never again attempted to paint a multi-figure composition on this scale, but the re-emergence of Three Figures in the early 1890s marked his renewed interest in drawing from the nude, depicting models with flowing robes and their heads covered in red and purple scarves, tending to plants in ceramic vases (fig.21).95 Despite everything, the subject clearly continued to fascinate him.