Lithograph printed on thin Japanese paper, 1890
After his marriage to Beatrice Godwin in August 1888, Whistler made a number of lithographs of her close family, especially her assured and elegant sister Ethel Birnie Philip, whom he nicknamed ‘Bunnie’. This print and Suede Gloves below show Bunnie wearing a fashionable plumed hat. Both were drawn in early autumn 1890 and preceded Whistler’s more formal, painted portraits of her.
This proof was hand-printed, but the image was also machine-printed in a large edition published in October 1890 in the new periodical The Whirlwind, after being transferred to new stones. Whistler sent several copies of The Whirlwind to be distributed in Paris by Mallarmé, who admired the draughtsmanship as ‘biting and elegant, of supreme charm’.
Given by Sir Herbert Thompson 1920
Collections record: P.95-1959
