Mother of Pearl and Silver: The Andalusian

A full-length portrait of Ethel Whibley, standing with her back to the viewer and her head turned in profile. The palette is limited to black, mother-of-pearl and silver, and the title refers to the model's gray silk evening dress, cut in the fashionable Parisian style of the Belle Époque. The transparent, layered sleeves of the black bolero jacket, by contrast, suggest a traditional Andalusian costume, so the picture plays with the blending of two worlds. Ethel Birnie Philip, the artist's sister-in-law, worked for a time as his secretary in 1893 and 1894, and in 1896 she married Charles Whibley. Whistler began the canvas in London in 1888, the year he married Beatrix, and completed it in Paris in 1900, a long working process that explains its unusual history. It is one of several full-length images he made of her, alongside sketches and etchings.

Painter

James McNeill Whistler

Date

1800

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

192 × 90 cm

Museum

Galería Nacional de Arte, Washington, D.C.

Genre

portrait

Depicts

Ethel Whibley

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