James McNeill Whistler - Wapping [1860-64]

James McNeill Whistler - Wapping [1860-64], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Whistler inscribed "1861" at the lower right of this early canvas, but he reworked the picture extensively nearly four years later. He sketched the original composition in a letter to an associate and described the girl as "saying to her sailor: 'That's all very well my friend, but don't think you're the first.' You know, she winks and pokes fun at him." In this final revision, however, Whistler eliminated any risqué narrative and instead sought a mood of pensive isolation.

The background remains intact from the artist's first sessions at Wapping, a dockyard on the river Thames, in East London. Painting on site from an inn called The Angel, Whistler created the whole scene en plein air. Against the bright turquoise water and sky, the ships' masts and rigging are quickly sketched in orange and brown strokes.

For this work, Whistler hired Joanna Hiffernan, an artist's model known for her coppery red hair. She soon became his mistress and posed for The White Girl. After finishing that composition in 1862, Whistler returned to Wapping. He repainted its foreground figure group into a harmony of russet browns and blue grays, which are darker shades of the pure oranges and blues in the setting. By its concentration on a consistent colour scheme, this important canvas marks Whistler's major advancement toward "art for art's sake."

[Oil on canvas, 72 x 101.8 cm]