It was No. 13, close to the White House. Whistler decorated it in yellow: one "felt in it as if standing inside an egg," Howell said. He again picked up blue and white, and old silver; he again gave Sunday breakfasts, and they again became the talk of the town and he the fashion. If the town was determined to talk, Whistler was willing it should. He was never so malicious, never so extravagant, never so joyous. He wrapped himself "in a species of misunderstanding." He filled the papers with letters. London echoed with his laugh. His white lock stood up defiantly above his curls; his cane lengthened; a series of collars sprang from his long overcoat; his hat had a curlier brim, a lower tilt over his eyes; he invented amazing costumes: "in great form, with a new fawn-coloured long-skirted frock-coat, and extraordinary long cane," Mr. Cole found him one summer day in 1882. He was known to pay calls with the long bamboo stick in his hand and pink bows on his shoes. He allowed no break in the gossip. The carriages brought crowds, but not sitters. Few would sit to him before the trial; after it there were fewer. In the seventies it needed courage to be painted by Whistler; now it was to risk notoriety and ridicule. Lady Meux was the first to give him a commission. Two of his three large full-lengths of her are amongst his most distinguished portraits. She was handsome, of a luxuriant type, her full-blown beauty a contrast to the elusive loveliness of Maud in the Fur Jacket, or Mrs. Leyland, or Mrs. Huth. Whistler found appropriate harmonies. One was an Arrangement in White and Black. There is a sumptuousness in the velvet gown and the long cloak he never surpassed, and the firm modelling of the face, neck, and arms gives to the regal figure more solidity than he ever got before. Whistler was pleased with it, spoke of it as his "beautiful Black Lady," and Lady Meux was so well pleased that she posed a second time. In this, the Harmony in Flesh Colour and Pink, afterwards changed to Pink and Grey, she wears a round hat low over her face, and a pink bodice and skirt, and stands against a pink background, and the ugly fashion of the day cannot conceal the beauty. The third portrait, as far as we can find out, was never finished. Mr. Walter Dowdeswell has a pen-and-ink drawing of it. She wears a fur cap, a sable coat, and carries a muff. For this, it is said, after differences, a maid posed and Whistler painted her face over the Lady's. Mr. Harper Pennington says: "The only time I saw Jimmy stumped for a reply was at a sitting of Lady Meux (for the portrait in sables). For some reason Jimmy became nervous, exasperated, and impertinent. Touched by something he had said, her ladyship turned softly towards him and remarked, quite softly, 'See here, Jimmy Whistler! You keep a civil tongue in that head of yours, or I will have in some one to finish those portraits you have made of me!' with the faintest emphasis on 'finish.' Jimmy fairly danced with rage. He came up to Lady Meux, his long brush tightly grasped, and actually quivering in his hand, held tight against his side. He stammered, spluttered, and finally gasped out, 'How dare you? How dare you?' but that, after all, was not an answer, was it? Lady Meux did not sit again. Jimmy never spoke of the incident afterwards, and I was sorry to have witnessed it."
At the time of the London Memorial Exhibition Lady Meux offered the Committee the two portraits in her possession on condition that the third should be returned to her. This the Committee were unable to do, and it was not until her will was published after her death, in January 1911, in which she bequeathed the missing picture and the correspondence relating to it to the National Gallery, that any more was heard about it. Then a statement appeared in a New York paper that the portrait was in the collection of Mr. Freer, and Miss Birnie Philip stated in the Times that Whistler had destroyed the picture which, according to Lady Meux in her will, "was ordered and paid for by her husband, but it had never come into his possession nor could it be found."
Sir Henry Cole posed for a second portrait and Whistler got back from Mr. Way the first, discovered in one of the rolls of canvases he bought at the sale. Mr. Cole saw the second portrait in the studio:
"February 26 (1882). Found his commencement of my father, good but slight, full length, evening clothes, long dark cloak thrown back, red ribbon of Bath."
"April 17 (1882). In spite of his illness, my father to Whistler's, who fretted him by not painting; my father thought that Jimmy had merely touched the light on his shoes, and nothing else, although he stood and sat for over an hour and a half."
This was the last sitting. The next day Sir Henry Cole died suddenly: a distinguished official lost to England, a friend lost to Whistler. Eldon, an artist much with Whistler at the time, was in the studio on the 17th, and recalled afterwards that Sir Henry Cole's last words on leaving were, "Death waits for no man!" Whistler meant to go on with the portrait. On May 2 Mr. Cole went again to Tite Street: "After a long delay, Jimmy showed me his painting of my father, which J. can make into a very good thing."
It is said not to have been finished, but we possess a photograph of it which shows no want of finish. This also, Mr. Cole was informed, Whistler destroyed. Neither was a full-length of Eldon finished: a fine thing, to judge from the photograph we have seen. It also has vanished, though a small half-length, sent to the London Memorial Exhibition, but not hung—it may be a copy—is now in New York. During the next few years other portraits were begun, and of several we have photographs which it is not possible to identify. An Arrangement in Yellow was of Mrs. Langtry. For a new version of his scheme of "blue upon blue" Miss Maud Waller posed. Mrs. Marzetti, her sister, who went with her to the studio, writes:
"The sittings commenced in the early part of 1882. We went two or three times, and then Whistler painted the face out, as it was not to his liking, although most people thought it excellent. In those days Maud was very beautiful. The picture was started on a canvas that already had a figure on it, and it was turned upside down, and the Blue Girl's head painted in between the legs. The dress was made by Mme. Alias, the theatrical costumier, to Whistler's design, and I believe cost a good deal. In the end the picture was finished from another model (I do not know who), and was hung in one of Whistler's exhibitions in Bond Street [Notes, Harmonies, Nocturnes, May 1884, at Dowdeswell's]: it is No. 31 in the catalogue, and called Scherzo in Blue—The Blue Girl. This was the same exhibition in which he hung the picture he gave me, and which in the end I never got (No. 66, Bravura in Brown). I should have treasured it for two reasons: Whistler's painting, and also that it was a portrait of Mr. Ridley. The picture of Maud was to have been at the Grosvenor Gallery, but was not finished. However, it was sent in for the private view, and taken away again the same night or next morning. We used thoroughly to enjoy our visits to the studio—that is to say, I did, because I sat and looked on. I can't say whether Maud enjoyed them as much; probably not, as we used to get down there about eleven o'clock, have lunch, and stay all the afternoon, most of which time she was standing.
"I cannot remember all the callers we used to see there, as there were so many, but some of the more frequent visitors I remember well. There was one man who was always there, all day long, and we just hated him; I don't know why, as he seemed very harmless. He was Whistler's shadow. I don't know who he was, but have an idea that he used to write a bit. I think he was very poor, and that Whistler pretty well kept him. I heard some few years ago that he died in a lunatic asylum. Oscar Wilde was a frequent visitor, also Walter Sickert. Whistler used to say, 'Nice boy, Walter!' he was very fond of him then. Others I remember were two brothers named Story, Frank Miles (who had a studio just opposite Whistler's)—Renée Rodd as Whistler used to call him—Major Templar, Lady Archie Campbell, and Mrs. Hungerford. Whistler was just finishing the portrait of Lady Meux, and I stood for him one day for about five minutes. It was a full-length portrait in black evening dress, with a big white cloak over the shoulders.
"Whistler was a most entertaining companion; he was very fond of telling us Edgar Allan Poe's stories, and also of reciting The Lost Lenore, which he said was his favourite poem. He dined with us several times in Lyall Street; he was always late for dinner, sometimes half an hour, and I think on more than one occasion was sound asleep at the table before the end of the dinner.