When Whistler did part with a picture he had no faculty for getting a high price. His prices were very uncertain. To one person he might ask a round sum, to another small,—just as the mood seized him, the price having no particular relation to the painting.
He never could see why paintings should be sold, like cloth, by the square yard; why a large picture should necessarily bring more than a small. To him perfection was perfection, whether large or small.
What justifiable reason is there for the commercial schedule of so much for a head, so much for a half-length, so much for a full-length portrait?
The one may, but does by no means necessarily, take a little more time; but, then, a painter does not value his work by the day.
A perfect thing is a perfect thing, whether large or small, Whistler would frequently say. In the matter of prices he was obliged to yield somewhat to custom, and ask more for large pictures than for small, but he did so reluctantly and intermittently, with the natural result that dealers, who screen pictures as the plasterer does his gravel, could do nothing with him.
Of late years, with a demand far beyond any possible supply, his prices advanced; but where a Degas, for instance, would sell for five, ten, or fifteen thousand dollars, a Whistler of incomparably greater beauty would sell for a third or a fifth the amount,—proof of what the co-operation of the dealer can do.
Some years ago he showed a visitor several heads of Italian children, each about ten or twelve, by sixteen or eighteen inches in size. With them was a three-quarter length of one of the children. They were all superb bits of portraiture, and akin to the “Little Rose, Lyme Regis,” in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
The visitor was eager to get one or more of the pictures. After considerable pressure, he said:
“I think they ought to be worth six hundred guineas each; don’t you?”
“And the large one?” said the visitor.