Recollections and impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler

by Arthur Jerome Eddy

For the first time in the annals of litigation the question was presented for final determination,—whether an artist could be compelled to deliver work which he claimed was not yet finished to his satisfaction, even though he had received the price. Be it said to the credit of the French tribunal of last resort, that it held broadly that the artist is master and proprietor of his work until such time as it shall please him to deliver it. But that, failing delivery, he must return the price with interest thereon, together with such damages as the sitter may have sustained.

The hand of the painter cannot be forced by the importunity of either patient or impatient patron, and no man but the painter himself can say when a painting is sufficiently finished to be delivered.

Except in those few cases where Whistler took such intense dislikes to sitters or purchasers that he would not permit them to have his work under any circumstances, there is no instance where the great painter, in unduly delaying the delivery of a picture, had any intention of depriving the owner of what was rightfully his,—namely, the possession of the picture.

Beyond the right of possession, Whistler did not concede much to the owner. Frequently he challenged the owner’s right to exhibit without his sanction, and he was quite inclined to deny to the owner the moral right to sell at speculative prices. He had a poor opinion of those who would buy from the artist to sell later at a profit; he classed them as dealers.

Sitters did not always see things in the same light, and became tired, then impatient, sometimes ugly. Then Whistler would no longer like them, and the sittings would come to an end. If the portrait was unfinished, it was cast aside to remain forever unfinished; if finished, the money would be returned and the portrait kept,—under no circumstances to fall into the hands of a person whom he disliked.

The studio contained many an unfinished portrait, some of them works of great beauty, but of complete indifference to Whistler. He lost all interest in them when he lost interest in the sitters; and it mattered not to him that he had spent and lost days, and weeks, and months of precious time, nor did it matter to him that his sitters had exhausted themselves with numerous and long seances.

Childless, his paintings were his children, and to part with one was like the parting of mother and child.

In these days, when the selling of pictures has become an essential part of the art of painting, it is difficult for people to comprehend the attitude of a man who really did not like to sell.

“What are pictures painted for, if not to sell?” asks the spirit of the age.

It does not seem quite so obvious that poems are written to sell and that music is composed to sell. Even the “practical man” feels that poems and music ought to be made for something more than to sell, and if they are not, they will be the worst for the narrow end in view; but paintings and sculpture, they are commercial products to be dealt in accordingly.