UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

full-length, interior, portrait, reading, window, woman standing.

Whistler's original title is not known. Minor variations on the title are as follows:


'A Lady at a Window' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 1
'Lady at Window' (1890/1892, Beatrice Whistler (1857-1896)). 2
'Lady at a Window' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 3



The title 'A Lady at a Window', originating with Wedmore, is the generally accepted title.

A woman wearing a hat stands facing slightly to the right, leaning against a cabinet or table and looking at a sheet of paper. There is a window to left of the cabinet. Above her is a sloping beam or the corner of the room. Her fair hair is pulled back, except for a short fringe, under a dark hat with broad, slightly curled brim. She wears a dark, very slim fitting skirt, and a jacket with narrow sleeves with quite large puffs on the upper arm, over a dark, high necked blouse or scarf. There appears to be the start of another sketch underneath, visible mostly to right of her feet.

For later changes, including the introduction of a printing press at right, see STATES.

The sitter is not known, but could be Alice Fay Greaves (b. 1852), Maud Franklin (1857- ca 1941) or the artist Rosa Frances Corder (1853-1893), who was posing for Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder [y203] around 1876-1878. Whistler's portrait of Rosa Corder was engraved in mezzotint by Richard Josey (1840-1906) in 1880, and is reproduced below.

Richard Josey, mezzotint after Whistler's Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder [y203], 1880.
Whistler Collection, Special Collections, Glasgow University Library.

In 1877 Whistler was encouraged by Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890), with the help of Rosa Corder, to print from his old etching plates. He told the story years later to the Pennells:

This may confirm the identity of the woman as Rosa Corder. It may be that she is supposedly looking at a proof - possibly an impression of this portrait of herself. A rough sketch of a small printing press appears in the third state of the drypoint, to right of the woman, as seen below:

This is the only image by Whistler of a printing press.

The composition may well have been influenced by an etching and drypoint Portrait of Jan Six, by Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn (1617-1681). 5 It shows the young man reading a paper, and leaning against a window-sill. He stands facing left where Whistler's lady faces right, and the interior is considerably darker than Whistler's. 6

Lochnan suggests that Whistler was making repeated but not very satisfactory attempts 'to translate into etching the two-dimensional figure type found in Japanese prints' and cites this drypoint as one of the more successful attempts. 7