Portraits of Mrs. Charles Whibley were in progress about the same time: L'Andalouse, Mother of Pearl and Silver, the unfinished Tulip, Rose and Gold, and Red and Black, The Fan. Two others of this period are of Mrs. Walter Sickert, Green and Violet, the second for which she sat, and Lady Eden, Brown and Gold. He was also painting his own portrait in the white jacket, which was changed into a black coat after Mrs. Whistler's death, and a full-length in a long brown overcoat shown in 1900 and not since.
The large canvases had to be left when he shut up the studio, but he could carry his little portfolio of lithographic paper and box of chalks everywhere, and during those two or three years he developed the art of lithography as no one had before, he and Fantin-Latour being the two chief factors in the revival of lithography in the nineties. He was determined, he said, to make "a roaring success of it." In the streets and at home he was constantly at work, and the result is the series of lithographs of the shops and gardens and galleries of Paris and many portraits. His interest in technique was tireless. He experimented on transfer-paper and on stone. He hunted old paper as strenuous people hunt lions. Drawings and proofs were for ever in the post between Paris and London, where the Ways were transferring and printing for him, and friends were for ever bringing paper from London or carrying drawings tremblingly back from Paris. He was deep in experiments with colour, and a few of the lithographs for Songs on Stone, already announced by Mr. Heinemann, were at last ready. They were proved in Paris by Belfont, but his shop closed in 1894, printer and stones vanished, and this was the end of the proposed publication. Since Whistler's death mysterious prints in black-and-white from the key stones have turned up in Germany, but only a few prints in colour remain, no two alike, trials in colour. He had looked for great things: "You know, I mean them to wipe up the place before I get done," he said, and their loss was a severe disappointment. Other lithographs, made then or later, were published in the Studio, the Art Journal, L'Estampe Originale, L'Imagier, the Pagenat, and one in our Lithography and Lithographers. He never wanted to keep his work, no matter in what medium, from the public. With commissions and experiments keeping him busy in Paris, Whistler was, as he wrote to us in London, working from morning to night, and in a condition for it he wouldn't change for anything. He was compelled to change it only too soon.
CHAPTER XXXVIII: TRIALS AND GRIEFS.
THE YEARS EIGHTEEN NINETY-FOUR TO EIGHTEEN NINETY-SIX.
In 1894 interruptions came, some slight, but one so serious that life and work were never the same again.
A tedious annoyance was caused by Du Maurier's Trilby in Harper's Magazine. Du Maurier represented the English students at Carrel's (Gleyre's) as veritable Crichtons, while Whistler, under the name of Joe Sibley, was ridiculed. Du Maurier's drawings left no doubt as to the identity, for in one Whistler wears the chapeau bizarre over his curls. Another shows him running away from a studio fight, and the text is more offensive. Joe Sibley is "'the Idle Apprentice,' the King of Bohemia, le roi des truands, to whom everything was forgiven, as to François Villon, à cause de ses gentillesses.... Always in debt ... vain, witty, and a most exquisite and original artist ... with an unimpeachable moral tone.... Also eccentric in his attire ... the most irresistible friend in the world as long as his friendship lasted, but that was not for ever.... His enmity would take the simple and straightforward form of trying to punch his ex-friend's head; and when the ex-friend was too big he would get some new friend to help him.... His bark was worse than his bite ... he was better with his tongue than his fists.... But when he met another joker he would just collapse like a pricked bladder. He is now perched on such a topping pinnacle (of fame and notoriety combined) that people can stare at him from two hemispheres at once."
Du Maurier had posed as a friend for years, and in the Pall Mall Gazette Whistler protested against the insult. Du Maurier, to an interviewer, expressed surprise; he thought the description of Joe Sibley would recall the good times in Paris, and he pretended to be amazed that Whistler did not agree. He claimed that he was one of Whistler's victims, and quoted Sheridan Ford's pirated edition of The Gentle Art:
"It was rather droll. Listen: 'Mr. Du Maurier and Mr. Wilde happening to meet in the rooms where Mr. Whistler was holding his first exhibition of Venice etchings, the latter brought the two face to face, and, taking each by the arm, inquired, "I say, which one of you two invented the other, eh?"' The obvious retort to that, on my part, would have been that, if he did not take care, I would invent him, but he had slipped away before either of us could get a word out.... I did what I did in a playful spirit of retaliation for this little jibe about me in his book."
The editor of Harper's had not understood the offensive nature of the passages. Whistler called his attention to them, and an apology was published in the magazine (January 1895), the number was suppressed, and Du Maurier was compelled to omit them, and to change Joe Sibley to Bald Anthony in the book. Whistler, when the changes were submitted to him, was satisfied. But he said:
"Well, you know, what would have happened to the new Thackeray if I hadn't been willing? But I was gracious, and I gave my approval to the sudden appearance in the story of an Anthony, tall and stout and slightly bald. The dangerous resemblance was gone. And I wired—well, you know, ha ha!—I wired to them over in America compliments and complete approval of author's new and obscure friend, Bald Anthony!"