Beyond the fact that Whistler was for a time in his studio, Gleyre has not much claim on fame. There could not have been anything in common between the master and his pupil, for he was academic to the last degree. “Not even by a tour in the East did he allow himself to be led away from the classic manner; and as the head of a great leading studio he recognized it as the task of his life to hand the traditions of the school of Ingres,” whom Whistler used to call a “Bourgeois Greek,” “on to the present.” He “was a man of sound culture, who during a sojourn in Italy, which lasted five years, had examined Etruscan vases and Greek statues with unintermittent zeal, studied the Italian classics, and copied all Raphael. Having come back to Paris, he never drew a line without having first assured himself how Raphael would have proceeded.”
However, there must have been a certain combative streak in his character which did appeal to Whistler, for in 1849 he quarreled with the Salon over the success of Courbet, and thereafter sent his pictures to Swiss exhibitions.
Whistler’s first commission grew out of an acquaintance made at West Point. At one of the commencement festivities he met a charming young girl, a Miss Sally Williams, and her father, Captain Williams.
While a student in Paris, the pretty daughter and the bluff old captain called on him, and the captain said:
“Mr. Whistler, we are over here to see Paris, and I want you to show us the pictures.”
Nothing loath, Whistler took them to the Louvre, and after they had walked a mile or two the captain stopped before some pictures that pleased him and asked:
“Do you suppose you could copy these pictures?”
“Possibly.”
“Then, I wish you would copy this, and that, and that,” pointing out three paintings. “When they are finished, deliver them to my agent, and he will pay you your price.”
Whistler made the copies, and received the first money he ever earned with his brush.