UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

cancelled plate, hair, head, model, portrait, woman.

The name of the sitter, Joanna Hiffernan (b. ca 1843), usually figured in titles, under various spellings:


'Head of a Female' (1874, James Anderson Rose (1819-1890)). 1
'Joe' (1874, Ralph Thomas, Jr (1840-1876)) 2
'"Jo"' (1894, Whistler). 3
'Jo' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 4


'Jo', the shortest version of the nickname, was used by Whistler, and was adopted by Mansfield and later cataloguers.

The head and shoulders of a young woman with long wavy hair falling from a central parting. She faces to the front, turned slightly to the left. She wears a high-necked, loose, plain dress or blouse. She is lit from the left, and the background is in shadow.

Photograph of Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl [y038].
Whistler Collection, Glasgow University Library, Special Collections.

Joanna Hiffernan (b. ca 1843). She posed at this time in Paris for an oil painting, Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl [y038] (Whistler's photograph of this is reproduced above) - and other drypoints - Jo's Bent Head [88] and Brushing the Hair [94].

This is the most close-up, personal and vibrant of Whistler's portraits of Jo. Her long rippling red hair is prominent in another drypoint, Weary [93]. Whistler delighted in her hair, as he told Fantin Latour:

'C'est des cheveux les plus beaux que tu n'aie jamais vu! d'un rouge non pas doré mais cuivré - comme tout ce qu'on a revé de Venitienne! - une peau blanche jaune ou dorée si tu veux - ' Translated: 'She has the most beautiful hair that you have ever seen! a red not golden but copper - as Venetian as a dream! - skin golden white or yellow if you will -' 5