UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

artist, guitar, man standing, musician, portrait.

There are several minor variations, involving punctuation and the addition or omission of the definite article and the sitter's name, as follows:


'The Guitar player - (Ridley)' (1874/1875, Whistler). 1
'The Guitar player' (1875, Whistler). 2
'Guitar Player' (1877, Whistler). 3
'Ridley [(]"The Guitar player")' (1877, Whistler). 4
'The Guitar-Player' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 5
'Ridley' (1887, Whistler). 6
'The Guitar Player' (1910, Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932)). 7


Whistler apparently wanted to identify the sitter, so 'The Guitar Player (M. W. Ridley)' is based on his original title.

A nearly full-length portrait of a man with dark hair, a full beard and moustache. He wears a short jacket and stands facing nearly front, but turned a little to the left, playing a guitar. There is shading in the background.

Matthew White Ridley (1837-1888). He also appears in The Camp 080 and The Storm 081, and in the 1861 etching, Le Salon d'Edwards, Sunbury, by Alphonse Legros (1837-1911). 8

H. Fantin-Latour, Portrait du peintre anglais Ridley, oil, 1861.
(97th Exhibition at the French Gallery, catalogue, 1910).

In 1860 Ignace-Henri-Jean-Théodore Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) painted a self-portrait that he gave to Ridley, which is now in the Tate (N04581) and he also painted two portraits of Ridley, one in 1861, reproduced above, 9 and another in 1865.