"Charmant, Princesse, nous sommes des collègues."
On the way back from Rome Whistler stopped at Florence, and of his stay there Mr. J. Kerr-Lawson wrote us the account:
"The McNeill has been here and just gone—we had him lightly on our hands all day yesterday.
"We didn't 'do' Florence, for there was a fierce glaring sun and a horrible Tramontana raging, so we spent the best of the morning trying to write a letter in the rococo manner to the Syndic of Murano quite unsuccessfully. [This was after the awards in the Venice International Exhibition.]
"After luncheon I took him down to the Uffizi. We seemed to be the only people rash enough to brave the awful wind, for we saw no one in the Gallery but a frozen Guardia. He—poor fellow—was brushed aside by a magnificent and truly awe-inspiring gesture as we approached that battered and begrimed portrait in which Velasquez still looks out upon the world which he has mastered with an expression of superbly arrogant scorn in the Portrait Gallery.
"It was a dramatic moment—the flat-brimmed chapeau de haut forme came off with a grand sweep and was deposited on a stool, and then the Master, standing back about six feet from the picture and drawing himself up to much more than his own full natural height, with his left hand upon his breast and the right thrust out magisterially, exclaimed, 'Quelle allure!' Then you should have seen him. After the solemn act of homage, when he had resumed his hat, we relaxed considerably over the lesser immortals of this crazy and incongruous Valhalla—what an ill-assorted company! How did they all get together? Liotard, the Swiss, jostles Michael Angelo, Giuseppe MacPherson rubs shoulders with Titian, Herkomer hangs beside Ingres, and Poynter is a pendant to Sir Joshua. There are the greatest and the least, the noblest and the meanest brought together by the capricious folly of succeeding directors and harmonised by that touch of vanity that makes the whole world kin.
"One wonders whom they will ask next. Certainly not Whistler. They knew quite well he was here, but not the slightest notice was taken of him. En revanche, every now and then some vulgar mediocrity passes this way, and then the foolish Florentines are lavish with their laurels."
Whistler had not been long dead when J. received an inspired letter from Florence asking him if he could obtain Whistler's portrait for the Uffizi. His answer was that had they appreciated Whistler they might have asked him while he was alive, but as they had not had the sense or the courage to do so, they had better apply to his executrix. As yet there is no portrait of Whistler in the Uffizi.
After absences from his studio Whistler discovered again that pictures and prints were disappearing. It worried him, and he tried to trace and recover them. We have little doubt that, at times, Whistler lost prints through his carelessness. We know that once his method of drying his etchings between sheets of blotting paper thrown on the floor was disastrous. One morning an artist came to see us bringing a number of beautiful proofs of the second Venice Set, in sheets of blotting paper as he had bought them from an old rag and paper man in Red Lion Passage, who thought they could be no good because the margins were cut down and so sold them for a shilling apiece. The artist admitted that he did not care for them, and we offered him half-a-crown. "Oh," he said, "as you are willing to give that, now I shall find out what they are really worth." He got sixty pounds for them, but several of the prints separately have since sold for much more. Accidents like this would account for some of the things Whistler thought were stolen. A few works that had disappeared were recovered during his lifetime. But shortly after his death there was a sale at the Hôtel Drouot in which missing paintings, drawings, plates, prints, and even letters were dispersed. Only those who were near him can realise how much this troubled and annoyed him during his last years. At the same time he began to suffer from another of the evils of success. Pictures, somewhat resembling his and attributed to him appeared at auctions, and others were sent to him for identification or signature by persons who had purchased them. If he knew beforehand that one of these fakes was coming up in the auction-room, he would send and try to stop the sale, or, if submitted to him, he would not give it back. Neither expedient met with marked success. At present there is a factory of Whistlers in full operation, while oils and water-colours and drawings ascribed to him without the slightest reason have been openly sold at auction, despite the protests made against such swindles.