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Mrs Leyland, Sr.

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.402)
Number: 123
Date: 1874/1875
Medium: drypoint
Size: 229 x 153 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 19
Catalogues: K.103; M.104; W.227
Impressions taken from this plate  (19)

KEYWORD

age, cancelled plate, dress, portrait, woman seated.

TITLE

Variations on the title are as follows:


'Mrs Leyland Sen' (1877, Whistler). 1
'F. R. Leyland’s Mother' (1899, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 2
'Madame Leyland' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 3


'Mrs Leyland, Senoir' is based on Whistler's original title.

1: Whistler to C. A. Howell, 9-11 November 1877, GUW #12738.

2: Wedmore 1899[more] (cat. no. 227).

3: Mansfield 1909[more] (cat. no. 104).

DESCRIPTION

A three-quarter length portrait of an elderly lady sitting in a high-backed armchair, facing three-quarters left, but looking at the viewer. She wears a bonnet trimmed with feathers and/or ribbons, a dress with a dark bow or collar at the neck, and possibly a loose jacket or scarf and a patterned shawl over her shoulders. Her arms rest on the arms of the chair, her hands in her lap. There is shading in the background.

SITTER

Anne Jane Leyland (1811-1877), was the mother of Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892). She was about seventy years old at this time, and still had a commanding presence. She died a couple of years later. She had four children, and her husband may have died (or absconded, or been deported to Australia - there are various theories) by 1838. In the Liverpool census for 1841 Anne Leyland was recorded as a 30-year-old milliner, and in the same house lived Johannah Leyland, age 25, also a milliner; Frederick aged 9; John aged 7; Eliza aged 5; Thomas aged 3 and a 10-year-old Irish girl - probably a skivvie called Mary Lynch.
To make ends meet, she took in lodgers and worked in dining-rooms in Liverpool patronised by the staff of Bibby & Co., where her son Frederick was to get his start in life. In 1851 the census described her as a 38-year-old widow, householder, at 27 Seymour Street, and the family consisted of Frederick R. Leyland, by then aged 19, book keeper; John Elphick Leyland, 18, clerk; Thomas Alexander Leyland, 13, apprentice insurance agent, an Irish servant Ann McKewn, and two male lodgers. 4

By 1861 the children had left home and she was sufficiently independent to be described as a 'lady'. When Frederick married Frances Dawson, the newly-weds lived for some time with his mother; later, she moved to Falkner Street, and her son and family to 36 Falkner Street - a respectable middle-class area - until Leyland took on the lease of Speke Hall in 1866. It was probably at Speke that Whistler's portrait of Mrs Leyland Senior was done. 5

4: Liverpool Census, HO107/561/19 , Folio 16, p. 24 ; HO107/2183 Folio11, p.14.

5: Merrill 1998[more], pp. 111, 113, 117-118.

DISCUSSION

Other portraits of elderly women include La Mère Gérard 024, La Rétameuse 026, La Vieille aux Loques 027, Whistler's Mother 103, The Beggars 190, and Marchande de Vin, Ajaccio 485.