fashion and textiles essay #002

Why is the dress of the sitter in the painting Symphony in White, No. 1:
The White Girl, (1862) by James McNeill Whistler (National Gallery of Art,
Washington) very different from the dress of the sitter, Mme Moitessier,
(1856) in the painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (National Gallery,
London) even though both paintings are from a similar time?
Due 23rd April 2008 for Emma-Jayne Charleton

brendan madden
2nd Year Textile Design, NCAD
 Illustration 1: Mme Moitessier, (1856)
by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (National Gallery, London)
Illustration 2: Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, (1862)
by James McNeill Whistler (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
 list of illustrations:

Why is the dress of the sitter in the painting Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, (1862) by James McNeill Whistler
(National Gallery of Art, Washington) very different from the dress of the sitter, Mme Moitessier, (1856) in the painting by Jean-
Auguste-Dominique Ingres (National Gallery, London) even though they are from a similar time?

Illustration 1 - Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, (1856) ‘Mme. Moitessier,’

London: The National Gallery

Illustration 2 - Whistler, James McNeill, (1862), ‘Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl,
Washington DC: National Gallery of Art

Illustration 3 - Aniline Dyed Magenta Dress, 1869

Illustrations 4 - Cage Crinoline, About 1860, Museum no. T.150-1986

available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/11121-popup.html (Accessed 21.04.2008)

Illustration 5 - Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, (1851) ‘Mme. Moitessier, standing

Illustration 6 - Woman’s Dress, 1854

Illustration 7 - Detail of the Left Hand from: (a) 1851 Portrait of Mme. Moitessier, and (b) 1856 Por-
trait of Mme. Moitessier.

Illustration 8 - Detail of the Dress Fabric for: (a) ‘Mme. Moitessier,’ (1856) by Ingres; (b) ‘Mme. de
Pompadour’ (1763-4) by Drouais; (c) 1760s dress fabric.

Illustration 9 - Drouais, François-Hubert, (1763-4), ‘Mme. de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame’,

London: The National Gallery

Illustration 10 - Woman’s Wedding Dress, 1858

Illustration 11 - Woman’s Dress, 1865

Illustration 12 - Woman’s Dress, ca.1810

Illustration 13 - Whistler, James McNeill, (1864), ‘Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl’,
Washington DC: National Gallery of Art

Illustration 14 - Courbet, Gustave, (1865), ‘Jo, La Belle Irlandaise’,

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art

analysis and comparison of dress - page zero

 the essay:

Why is the dress of the sitter in the painting Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, (1862) by James McNeill Whistler
(National Gallery of Art, Washington) very different from the dress of the sitter, Mme Moitessier, (1856) in the painting by
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (National Gallery, London) even though they are from a similar time?

Even at a first glance it is clear, that despite being from the same era in time and in fashion the dresses
of the sitters in these two paintings differ dramatically. The short answer to the question is that the dress
of Mme. Moitessier (Illustration 1) represents the pinnacle of contemporary fashion (Rifkin, 2000, p.45), while
the other dress, the one worn by Whistler’s White Girl, (Illustration 2) is part of an idealized depiction of ‘pre-
raphaelite harmony’ (MacDonald et al, 2003, p.44) rather than a reflection of the fashion of the day.
In both paintings the dress dominates the canvas, in terms not only of physical scale and centrality of
position, but also, it could be argued, as a ‘co-sitter’, where the dress is as important a subject as the
sitter themselves. The logic behind this is that is principally through the device of dress that both artists
convey the story they are trying to tell through their respective paintings. It is clear that Ingres and
Whistler are telling two very different stories here and this is why the dresses are so different. In this
essay we shall look briefly at contemporary trends and fashions of the late 1850s and early 1860s and
therefore place both dresses in a context in which their significance can be more easily understood.
We shall examine first the dress of Madame Paul-Sigisbert Moitessier, the sitter of Ingres’s 1856 paint-
ing, and then we shall consider the dress worn by Joanna Hiffernan in The White Girl by Whistler in the
context of Madame Moitessier which will help us to see how and why they are so different.

1856 was a radical year for fashion as it saw the introduction not only
of the steel spring crinoline by an American, W.S. Thompson, but also
the invention by an Englishman, W. H. Perkin, of aniline dyes - the
first completely synthetic dyes. “Prior to Perkin's discovery, all textile
dyes were derived from natural sources—plants, insects, and miner-
als. The first aniline dye was a manmade re-creation of the coloring
agent in the madder root, which produced numerous shades of red.”
(Watt, 2000). The introduction of these new dyes impacted fashion
across Europe and the United States as women sought to demon- 03 1869 Aliline Dyed Magenta Dress
strate how in vogue they were by using these new dyes liberally in their gowns (Illustration 3).

analysis and comparison of dress - page one

As for the silhouette of their dresses, the trend had continued through
the 1850s for skirts to become larger and larger and this necessi-
tated the use of a great deal of padding (made from a combination
of horse hair and linen, from which the word ‘crinoline’ is derived).
This plethora of heavy and unhygienic petticoats made it difficult for
women to sit or to move about freely, so when the artificial cage crino-
line appeared in June 1856 it was instantly adopted as a welcome
04 1856 Steel Cage Crinoline
and more practical alternative (Illustration 4). It was made of spring
steel hoops, increasing in diameter towards the bottom, suspended on cotton tapes. This design was
strong enough to support the skirts and create the desired bell-shaped effect but was significantly
lighter than the previous version, which meant women could continue to be fashionable but were now
free to sit down or to move as they wished, so rather than imprisoning women in cages (as some of
the reports and images of the time suggest) they had a liberating effect. (Johnstone, 2007a) Much of
the bad press Steel Cage Crinoline received was guided by the moral stance of the era rather than the
practicalities of wearing it, (perhaps the attitude towards them at that time could be compared to the
attitude we take towards the use of fur in fashion today) and so the reports of incidents arising from
the use of steel cage crinoline were generally greatly exaggerate but do have some grounding in the
truth as obviously no matter how lightweight it is, a skirt of the diameter of Madame Moitessier’s would
impede free movement, and easily catch fire or knock things over. The fashion was so popular though
that Punch nicknamed the crinoline craze 'Crinolinemania'. A report from The Lady's Newspaper of
1863 describes the virtues of steel spring crinoline:
'So perfect are the wave-like bands that a lady may ascend a steep stair, lean against a table, throw
herself into an armchair, pass to her stall at the opera, and occupy a further seat in a carriage, without
inconveniencing herself or others, and provoking the rude remarks of observers thus modifying in an
important degree, all those peculiarities tending to destroy the modesty of Englishwomen; and lastly, it
allows the dress to fall in graceful folds.'

Ingres believed portraiture to be inferior to history or landscape painting and so it was only because
he was so compelled by the sitter’s beauty that in 1844, he agreed to paint the portrait of the twenty-
four year old Mme. Marie-Clotilde-Inès Moitessier (née de Foucauld) (National Gallery, 2008a). From
the outset, the portrait was done very much on his terms and it was over a decade before he handed
over the completed painting. In the intervening years he started and abandoned it several times1.
In order to keep happy a sitter whose patience was waning, in 1851 he painted a quick three-quarter-

1 Mme Moitessier Seated in her almost unimaginable dress, was commissioned in 1844, sketched in by 1848, abandoned in 1849, resumed
in 1852, abandoned again in 1853, taken up again in 1854, and finished in 1857. The standing portrait [of 1851], on the other hand, was
completed in six months. The gesture of the upturned hand, in the seated portrait was taken from a wall painting at Herculaneum, which
analysis and comparison of dress - page two
length standing portrait (Illustration 5),
but did not regard this as a suffi-
ciently representative of the sitter’s
character or of her beauty, and so
continued to meticulously go over
each and every detail of what was to
become the 1856 painting.
One thing in particular that he paid at-
tention to was the magnificent dress
that the sitter wears in the finished 05 Madame Moitessier, Standing, 1851 06 Woman’s Dress, 1854

painting. The 1851 painting shows a comparatively plain black dress. This is the style of dress that was fash-
ionable in 1851 but another consideration was probably that to paint anything more complex would have
taken too long. For the 1856 painting however, Ingres considered every aspect of the dress, how it would
sit on the body, how the folds and drapes would fall and how the shape of the dress would hint at the body
beneath. We can see this clearly in his sketches and studies for the painting. Martin Davies’s2 article fea-
tured in the appendix to this essay covers many of the changes made and ideas threshed out during those
ten years, all of which Davies describes as improvements (1936, p.261).
The clearest example of an improvement between the 1851 and 1856 portraits, and one which Davies ref-
erences is the treatment of the jewellery on the sitter’s left hand (1936, p.267) (Illustration 7 A & B)
A B

07 Detail of the Left Hand: (a) 1851 Painting (Standing); (b) 1856 Painting (Seated)

Ingres knew from an engraving, probably in one of the volumes of antiquities, by Caylus, or by David and Maréchal, which he learned to copy
in David's studio. It's hyperreal precision, the apparent inevitability of the pose, and the imamculate execution, bear withness to the strange
idealism of the painter's outlook, as keen in his increasing age as it had been when he painted the Rivière portraits in 1804-5. A natural and all
too human sensuality has been sublimated into something rarer: Mmme Moitessier, both seated and standing, retains a mystery from which
all accidents ahve been removed. She is both human and superhuman, and the spectator immediately accepts the fact that she can impose
this dichotomy without strain, almost without ambiguity. This is classicism brought to life by a painter still obedient to his Romantic instincts.
(Brookner, 2000, p.113)
2 Martin Davies was responsible for negotiating the sale of Madame Moitessier from the sitter’s family to the National Gallery, London, and is
the author of a 1936 article on the painting which was an attempt to justify the purchase to critics of a very expensive painting.
analysis and comparison of dress - page three
So fastidious was Ingres’s attention to fashion, “Even the jewellery on your breast is too old-fashioned, and
I beg you to replace it with a gold cameo,” (Simon, 1995, p.141) and so intransigent his insistence that his
sitters be styled in the latest look that his works can actually be dated according to the clothes de-
picted therein (Simon, 1995, p.141), (Rifkin, 2000, p.45), and so even though there are only five years
between the standing portrait of 1851 and the seated portrait of 1856, we can clearly see from them
how fashion has changed in that time. In the ten years on and off that the painting was worked on the
costume went through many revisions as fashions changed and evolved and one must consider the ex-
pense and the waste of cloth that must have been endured through all these revisions.
From 1856 onwards, however, changes were more gradual and in fact, the dress we see worn by
Mme. Moitessier would still have been quite fashionable ten years later. The contemporary dresses il-
lustrated here and later in the essay verify this. (Illustration 6) shows a woman’s dress of 1854. The size
of the skirt, considering that this is two years before the invention of the steel cage crinoline, implies it
would have required a lot of padding and thus would only have been suitable for formal occasions such
as marriage or presentation at court where white was very much à la mode (MacDonald et al, 2003,
p.44) as a result of Queen Victoria wearing white for both. The Steel Cage Crinoline made this style of
dress more practical and attractive to women to wear for less formal occasions. The shape of the dress
in Illustration 6 is quite close to the silhouette of Mme. Moitessier, but the plain white silk fabric gives
way to the iresistability of the latest textile technology, and is replaced by a rose pattern jacquard weave
reminiscent of the fashion of the 1760s, and of course of the clothes of Madame de Pompadour. It is
quite likely that the allusion was intentional. Pompadour was a celebrated patron of the arts and was
surrounded by scores of beautiful objects much in the same way as Moitessier is in her portrait. The main
difference in the cloth used in the paintings of Mme. Pompadour and Mme. Moitessier is that Mme.
Pompadour’s dress would have been hand painted, probably in China, whereas with Mme. Moitessier,
the pattern is woven directly into the fabric. The similarity, however, is striking (Illustration 8 A & B)3.

A B C

08 Detail of the Dress Fabric for: (a) Madame Moitessier by Ingres; (b) Madame de Pompadour by Drouais; (c) A 1760s Dress

analysis and comparison of dress - page four

Illustration 9: Mme de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame, (1763-4)
by François-Hubert Drouais (National Gallery, London)

analysis and comparison of dress - page five

 The eighteenth century was a source not only of patterns but of fabrics. In the Portrait of Madame
Moitessier by Ingres (1856, London, National Gallery), the dress, sprinkled with bouquets, can be
compared to that in the Portrait of Madame de Pompadour by Quentin de la Tour (pastel, Paris,
Musée du Louvre, Département des arts Graphiques), or that of the Marquise d'Aiguirandes by
Drouais (1759, Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art). Brocaded, flowery materials remained much
in favour until the end of the century. (Simon, 1995, p.101)

As we can see from the two dresses illustrated here from 1858 and
1865 respectively, the fabrics and rococo motifs of the 1760s were a
major influence on the late 1850s and 1860s. The cut and construc-
tion of the 1858 wedding dress (Illustration 10) is almost identical to
the dress worn by Mme Moitessier (1856). The fact that it dates from
1858 shows again how à-la-mode Mme. Moitessier’s dress is. The
1865 dress (Illustration 11) is closer in date to The White Girl (1862),
but again carries the same rococo influences as the dresses of both
Mme Moitessier and Mme. de Pompadour (Illustration 9).
These high rococo and floral influences are hence ipso facto not ex- 10 Woman’s Wedding Dress, 1858

clusive to the outfit of Mme. Moitessier, so the resemblance of her

dress to that of Mme. de Pompadour could be argued to be a mere
‘happy accident’. Whether or not this is the case is a matter for an-
other forum, the fact stands if Ingres’s portrait of 1856 did not exist
and the dress worn by Mme. Moitessier in it were the only fragment
preserved of her life, such is its narrative quality, such is it’s zeitgeist
that from it alone and without any supporting documents, sketches
or contemporary accounts we would be able to tell almost as much
11 Woman’s Dress, 1865
of her story as we can with all the substantiating information.

3 In her 2005 book on the impact that fashion and art have on each other, Alice Mackrell eloquently describes the dress of our sitter,
Madame Moitessier in the context of the era with reference to the connection the portrait has with that of Madame de Pompadour
(illustration 9): Madame Moitessier's spectacular dress of Lyons silk, the bodice beribboned and the skirt supported by a crinoline, is akin to the
Rococo pattern of Madame de Pompadour's dress in Drouais's portrait. The dazzling floral design of Madame Moitessier's dress was achieved
by advances in technology in the textile industry. The invention of the Jacquard loom made possible the production of elaborate woven patterns
in threads coloured by the new, bright aniline dyes. The empress Eugénie began to wear this type of fabric in the mid-1850s at the resquest of
her husband, who hoped to stimulate the silk-weaving industry in Lyons. With french superiority in dress and jewellery, the Emperor made his
court the most brilliant in Europe, synomynous with toutes les gloires de la France. Madame de Moitessier shows her adherence to le style trou-
badour in her jewellery: a gold chain, a gold and enamel Renaissance-style brooch centrally placed on her bodice and gold bracelets studded
with stones. As in his portrait of Madame de Senonnes, Indres again used the fashion-plate device of a mirror, which brings out the dense lux-
ury of Rococo ornament in Madame Moitessier's drawing room as well as the details of her costume - for example, the exquisite lace and rib-
bon of her cache-peigne headdress - thus capturing the immediacy of fashion. (Mackrell, 2005, p.80)
analysis and comparison of dress - page six
In discussing Whistler’s Symphonies in White, Oscar Wilde quotes the artist as having said, ‘a painter
should paint only the dress of his age and of his actual surroundings’. As Wilde himself goes on to state,
this is clearly a dogma Whistler left aside in the painting we are looking at, Symphony in White No. 1:
The White Girl (1862) (O' Flahertie, 1908, p.69).

The dress we see here in The White Girl is in fact virtually the antithe-
sis of fashionable dress and is more similar in style to the fashions of a
previous century. It is opined by several eminent dress historians that
Whistler had the dresses made up to his own design expressly both for
this painting, and his very similar, Symphony in White, No.2: The Little
White Girl (1864). (MacDonald et al, 2003, p.44).
Although when it was painted in 1862, Symphony in White No. 1:
The White Girl was not part of a series, and in fact it was known by
a different name - Woman in White, the title of a Wilkie Collins novel
- it is quite helpful in terms of relating it to Ingres’s Mme. Moitessier
to consider The White Girl (as we shall hereon refer to it) alongside it’s
sister painting, The Little White Girl. The reason for this is that they 12 Woman’s Dress, ca.1810

share many of the same themes and it is evident that at least part of the reason Whistler renamed The
White Girl was so that it would be associated with The Little White Girl, and not with Collins’ novel.

Both dresses have the loose, natural lines of the Pre-Raphaelite dresses seen in Rossetti's images of
Elezabeth Siddal and Jane Morris. The absence of harsh dyes made white a popular choice for aes-
thetes and dress-reformers. In the first picture Jo's dress of white cambric reminded the French critic
Théophile Thoré of the opaque, matte whites of Reynold; to Léonce Bénédite the influence of Millais,
whom Whistler much admired at this time, was strongly evident... These dresses also incorporate
quasi-Renaissance features, such as the softly pleated bodice, puffed, ruched sleeves and in the lack
of fullness in the skirt, a curiosity to eyes used to the familiar amplitude of the crinoline...
White was a favourite colour for women (formally for court - in England young brides wore their
adapted wedding dresses for such presentations - and informally for summer and leisure wear). It
was, of course, especially suited to the innocence of jeunes files and children. "Nothing is so becom-
ing to a young face as attendant clouds of white muslin; there is poetry and modesty in its very ap-
pearance," wrote The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. (MacDonald et al, 2003, p.44).

The dress pictured here (illustration 12) shares many of the features of the dress in The White Girl. The
high waistline and vertical pleats in the upper half are complimented by short puffy upper sleeves al-
though this dress which is fifty years older than the painting has no lower sleeves where the dress that
Jo is wearing in the painting does have lower sleeves and cuffs. What is interesting about Symphony
in White No. 2, The Little White Girl (1864) (Illustration 13) is that although completely different in sub-
analysis and comparison of dress - page seven
Illustration 13: Symphony in White Number Two: The Little White Girl, (1864)
by James McNeill Whistler (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

analysis and comparison of dress - page eight

ject, nature and style, it borrows many devices from Ingres’s painting of Mme. Moitessier. The clearest
example of this is the device of the mirror. (Rosenblum, 2004, p.302) We see a similarly thoughtful face al-
though the thoughts behind it are clearly rather different from those of Moitessier. The Little White Girl also
has a fan, although it is a Japanese flat fan and is rather different from the folding fan of Mme. Moitessier.
Whistler was quite familiar with Ingres’s work and in fact, his early Parisian career was spent in the Louvre
taking commissions and copying from the works of masters such as Ingres4:
One of these canvases, a copy of an Ingres turned up in New York a year or two ago. It bore
Whistler's signature, but was so atrocious - imagine a combination of Ingres and Whistler - that even
the dealer doubted its authenticity; but when the photograph was shown to whistler he recognized
the picture and told the story (Eddy, 1903, p.80)

In the context of its sister painting, we can see that there are also several influences from Japanese art
in The White Girl. The flat swathes of single colours, the play of different shades of white, the sharp an-
gular depiction of the wolfskin, the leaf in Jo’s hand, and the limited palette. Visually thus, the painting
is really quite simple, but it feels almost that to take this painting at face value, as you can with that of
Mme. Moitessier, is to lose the entire meaning behind it. But what is the true meaning behind the paint-
ing? Why is she standing on a dead wolf? Why are there wilted flowers under her feet? What of the car-
pet? With all these elements evading our understanding our focus is drawn to the dress and all of our
questioning is nucleated upon it. The intensity of the white in the dress in contrast to the curtain makes
it appear as if the dress was painted in the moonlight and the rest of the painting indoors, or perhaps
it is both indoors and in the moonlight. There are a myriad of possibilities, all of which were refuted by
Whistler who consistently claimed that the painting was a depiction of a girl in a white dress, standing
on a wolfskin rug with a leaf in her hand in front of a curtain. Preliminary sketches for the painting show
a window to our right hand side and this window is the source of the light, but here the eerie lack of a
source compounds the painting’s mysteriousness.

Of all the 500 or more recored paintings done by James throughout his long career, The White Girl
has always been the most puzzling. Today the painting seems simple enough. It is a near life-size, full-
lenght portrait of Joanna measuring 214.6 x 108cm. She is dressed completely in white and holding a
lily in her left hand. Behind her is a white curtain, and she stands on a wolfskin rug which has been laid
over a patterned carpet. This straightforward description is more or less what James wrote several

4a Letter from Whistler to Fantin-Latour in 1867: "Had I only been a student of Ingres! I do not say that out of ecstasy before his paintings. I
have only lukewarm feelings toward them and find several of his paintings which we saw together of a rather questionable style, not at all
Greek as claimed but very terribly French." (Weintraub, 2001, p.124)
4b Whistler became acutely aware of his deficiencies in draftsmanship. He told Fantin-Latour that he should have been the pupil of Ingres, not
because of the Frenchman's classicism (he thought Ingres's paintings "French" rather than "Greek"), but because of his skill as a draftsman:
"How wisely he would have thought us - drawing! my God! colour - is the real vice!" Ingres's recent death may have inspired the outburst, but
Whistler was serious and spent months drawing from models - sometimes the same model nude and clothed in the classical chiton ap-
peared on the same sheet. (MacDonald et al, 2003, p.68)
analysis and comparison of dress - page nine
 months after he had completed the painting. Fervently disclaiming any outside literary source, he sent
a letter to the Athenaeum claiming that the painting 'simply represented a girl dressed in white stand-
ing in front of a white curtain'. While there is no reason to doubt the literal truth of this claim, the paint-
ing did not spring from nowhere; like every other picture it has an ancestry. what makes the painting
unique, is the way James reassembled his sources. (Anderson et al, 2002, p.106)

It may be of interest to look for a moment at the sitter of the painting,

Jo Hiffernan. It is very unlikely that this painting is an attempt to portray
the sitter’s character or personality but it does certainly express her
beauty in an almost mute rather eerie way. There is something unto-
ward suggested about the girl depicted, her lack of structural under-
garments do not match with her fine dress, this is complicated by the 14 Jo, la belle Irlandaise, 1865 by Courbet
fact that the dress is white, which suggests purity and innocence as
there is something about the image that is far from innocent. Reading through the different ideas as to
what the dress and its wearer represent in the appendix may prove helpful. This is not a portrait of its sit-
ter but Jo, La Belle Irlandaise (1865) by Gustave Courbet (Illustration 14) is a portrait of Jo at the same
time as being the artist’s personal interpretation of the traditional theme of vanity and in it we see some-
thing of the sitter’s character, something that is silenced in The White Girl.

The scant evidence of her life suggests that Hiffernan was obliged to become independent at a young
age. She was living with her family in London at 69 Newman Street when she first met Whistler in
about 1860. He was then sharing a studio next door with the caricaturist George Du Maurier. Her fa-
ther, Patrick Hiffernan, was a "sort of Captain Costigan, 'a teacher of polite chirography'"; Whistler im-
plied that he became close to the family, to the extent that Patrick Hiffernan spoke of him as "me
son-in-law." In March 1862 Patrick's wife, Katherine died... For Hiffernan at that time, the relative secu-
rity of life as Whistler's muse and live-in mistress might have seemed an attractive prospect.
(MacDonald et al, 2003, p.79

The biggest dissimilarity between these two paintings, Ingres’s Mme. Moitessier and Whistler’s Symphony
in White Number 1: The White Girl is also the reason that the dresses depicted in them are so disparate.
And the reason the dresses are so different is that one is a portrait of someone, an elegant Parisian so-
cialite in fashionable dress, and the other is not. The White Girl is not a portrait of its sitter, Jo Hiffernan,
but the expression of an idea, with the sitter and her dress used to illustrate that.
Christopher Janaway explains it quite well in his 2006 book on aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
And now I must emphasize that the distinction between pictures of particular things and pictures of things
merely of a particular kind of thing is a distinction that applies in virtue of the intentions, the fulfilled intentions,
of the artist. It has to do with how the artist desired the picture to be taken, and how well he succeeded in

analysis and comparison of dress - page ten

making the picture adequate to this desire. The distinction in no way depends upon what we happen to know
abotu who or what the picture is of. (Janaway, 2006, p.261)
Ingres is painting the portrait of a wealthy Parisian woman, and Whistler is creating a picture that is not
primarily a portrait of its sitter - his nineteen-year-old muse and mistress Joanna Hiffernan - but more
truly, a study of the play of light and colour and so with two such differing intentions, aesthetics and
ideals to represent, it is not surprising that the dresses are so unalike.

Word Count: 2416

analysis and comparison of dress - page eleven

 bibliography and reading list:

books

Anderson, Ronald and Anne Koval, (2002), James McNeill Whistler: Beyond the Myth,
London: Carroll & Graf

Brookner, Anita, (2000), Romanticism and Its Discontents,

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Eddy, Arthur Jerome, (1903) Recollections and Impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler,
Philidelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott Company

Edwards, Jason, Alfred Gilbert, (2006), Alfred Gilbert's Aestheticism: Gilbert Amongst Whistler,
Wilde, Leighton, Pater and Burne-Jones (British Art and Visual Culture Since 1750, New Readings),
Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited

Janaway, Christopher, (2006), Reading aesthetics and Philosophy of Art:

Selected Texts with Interactive Commentary (Reading Philosophy),
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Grace Galessi, Aileen Ribeiro, Patricia de Montfort, (2003),
Whistler, Women, and Fashion, London: Yale University Press

Mackrell, Alice (2005), Art and Fashion: The Impact of Art on Fashion and Fashion on Art,
London: Batsford

Nilsen, Anna, (2000), Art Fraud Detective: Spot the Difference, Solve the Crime,
London: Kingfisher

O' Flahertie Wills Wilde, Oscar, (1908), The Works of Oscar Wilde: Volume 12: Miscellanies,
London: Methuen & Co.

Prat, Louis-Antoine, (2004) Ingres (Drawing Gallery Series), Paris: Musée du Louvre

Raizman, David, Laurence Pu King, (2004), History of Modern Design (Trade Version),
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall

bibliography - page twelve

 ...books (continued)

Rifkin, Adrian, (2000) Ingres, Then and Now (Re Visions: Critical Studies in the
History and Theory of Art), London: Routledge

Robins Pennell, Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell, (2004), The Art of Whistler,
Whitefish, MT: Kessinger

Robins Pennell, Elizabeth, (2007), Whistler The Friend, New York: Fork Press

Rosenblum, Robert and HW Janson, (2004) 19th Century Art,

London: Prentice Hall

Siegfried, Susan, Adrian Rifkin, (2001), Fingering Ingres (Art History Special Issues),
Oxford: Blackwell

Simon, Marie, (1995), Fashion in Art: The Second Empire and Impressionism,
London: Zwemmer

Ullmann, H.F., (2007) Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres: 1780-1867 (Masters of French Art),

Koenigswinter: Tandem Verlag

Weintraub, Stanley, (2001), Whistler: A Biography, London: De Capo

Wilde, Oscar, (2006) Essays and Lectures, London: BiblioBazaar

articles

Betzer, Sarah, (2000), 'Ingres's Second Madame Moitessier: "Le Brevet du Peintre d'Histoire" ',
Art History, Volume 23 Issue 5 Page 681-705.

Davies, Martin, (1936), 'A Portrait by the Aged Ingres',

The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 68, No. 399 (Jun., 1936), pp. 257-268

Kimmelman, Michael, (1999), 'Art Review; Ingres: An Icy Eye for People,
The New York Times, Published October 8, 1999

bibliography - page thirteen

 dress objects (primary sources)

Roger, Mme., (ca.1865), Woman's Evening Dress, French, Silk Brocaded Taffeta, Tulle,
Satin and Blond Lace. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 46.207a-b

Unknown, (late 1850s), Woman's Two-Piece Day Dress, American, Silk plain weave (taffeta),
with supplementary-weft patterning (à la disposition) and silk net.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 50.476a-b

Unknown, (early 1850s), Woman's Two-Piece Day Dress, American, Silk jacquard weave,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 2002.697.1-2

Unknown, (ca.1854), Woman's Dress (two bodices, skirt, shall) American, Watered plain silk
weave (taffeta moiré), trimmed with silk ribbon, silk machine net, and bobbin lace,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 49.881a-d

Unknown, (ca.1855), Woman's two-piece day dress, American, Silk Plain Weave (taffeta)
with weft-float patterning (à la disposition),
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 51.322a-b

Unknown, (ca.1855), Woman's evening dress, French, Silk plain weave (taffeta), with
supplementary warp-and-weft patterning, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 53.2897

Unknown, (ca.1855), Woman's two-piece day dress, American, Watered plain silk plain
weave (taffeta), with weft floating patterning; silk fringe,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 64.1001a-b

Unknown, (ca.1810), Woman's Dress, Indian Fabric, French Construction, Cotton Plain weave
(mull), embroidered with silver strips, silk twill tape (drawstrings), linen plain weave tape
(interior under bust) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 49.873

Unknown, (1858), Ball Dress in Two Parts, French or American, Silk plain weave (taffeta), machine
net (tulle) and silk bobbin lace; trimmed with silk ribbon, embroidered silk net, and silk flowers,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 51.1346a-b

Unknown, (1858), Wedding Dress Worn by Emma Lowell who married Arthur Lyman (bodice)
American, Silk and tulle, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 51.1345a

Unknown, (1860), Woman's Dress, American, Silk figured, cotton tape, and metal hook and eye
clusure, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Accession No. 51.684b

bibliography - page fourteen

 ...dress objects (primary sources) continued

Unknown, (early 1760s), Gown, Constructed in London, English, Fabric Woven and Painted in
China, Chinese painted silk, hand-sewn with silk thread, the gown and petticoat trimmed with
woven silk net and silk bobbin lace, and two later decorations trimmed with 19th century green
silk ribbon, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Accession No. T.593:1 to 5-1999

Unknown, (1858-60), Dress, English, Printed Cotton, trimmed with whitework embroidery,
hand-sewn, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Accession No. T.702-1913

Unknown, (1862), Dress, English, Silk, trimmed with silk braid and beads,
lined with glazed cotton, edged with brush braid, hand-sewn,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Accession No. T.222 to B-1969

Unknown, (1860-65), Court Dress, English, Silk and silk tulle, trimmed with hand and machine
embroidered silk, openwork and silk ribbon, lined with silk, reinforced with whalebone,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Accession No. T.329 to B, AA-1977

Unknown, (1858), Dress, English, Moiré silk, silk and cotton lining, chenille trimmings, whalebone
straps and metal buttons, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Accession No. T.90&A-1964

Vignon, Mme., (1869-70), Dress, French (Paris), Ribbed silk, trimmed with satin,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Accession No. T.118-1979

Unknown, (ca.1860), Crinoline Cage, English, Red wool and linen, spring steel frame, waistband
fastened with hooks, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Accession No. T.150-1986

Unknown, (ca.1855), Afternoon Dress, French, Cotton gauze,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Accession No. 1977.304.1

Unknown, (1855-65), Dress, American, silk,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Accession No. C.I.69.33.4a–d

Unknown, (1864), Wedding Ensemble, French, cotton,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Accession No. 26.250.2a–e

paintings
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, (1856) ‘Mme. Moitessier,’
London: The National Gallery

Whistler, James McNeill, (1862), ‘Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl,
Washington DC: National Gallery of Art

bibliography - page fifteen

 ...paintings (continued)

Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, (1851) ‘Mme. Moitessier, Standing’

Washington DC: National Gallery of Art

Whistler, James McNeill, (1864), ‘Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl,
London: Tate Gallery

Drouais, François-Hubert, (1763-4), Madame de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame,

London: The National Gallery

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, (1872-3), Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs.
Frances Leyland, New York: The Frick Collection

Courbet, Gustave, (1865), ‘Jo, La Belle Irlandaise’,

New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

bibliography - page sixteen

 appendix a: the story behind the painting
‘The White Girl’ by Whistler

1 One of several theories as to the painting's source, and that favoured by most of James's biogra-
phers despite his refutation of it in the Athenaeum, was that it lay in Wilkie Collins's novel, The Woman
in White. This supposition seems reasonable. Collins was one of the most popular novelists in Eng-
land and The Woman in White had been serialized with immense success in Charles Dickens's weekly
journal All the Year Round from November 1859 for nearly a year. James must have been aware of the
novel though he claimed never to have read it. He might also have heard the rumours as to the inci-
dent claimed to have given rise to the novel, apparently witnessed by none other than Millais, a close
friend of Collins.
According to Millsais' son and biographer, John Guille Millais, his father had been having dinner with
Collins, who then decided to accompany the painter and another friend back to his studio in Gower
Street. Reaching the Finchley Road, they heard a piercing scream from the garden of a nearby villa:
the iron gate leading to the garden was dashed open, and from it came the figure of a
young and very beautiful woman dressed in flowing white robes that shone in the moonlight.
She seemed to float rather than tot run in their direction and, on coming up to the three
young men, she paused for a moment in an attitude of supplication and terror.
Millais ended his account of the story by noting that Collins followed her, and did not come back that
evening. 'Her story is not for these pages,' he gravely told his son. The woman in question, Caroline
Graves, later became one of Collins's mistresses.
The incident may have influenced Millais' own work, as a girl in a white dress appears in at least two
of his major paintings of this period: The Black Brunswicker of 1859-60, and, perhaps more perti-
nently, The Eve of St Agnes of 1862-3 when one of the major themes of the painting was the effect of
the moonlight 'falling correctly on the figure'.
It has also been suggested that french literary sources may have influenced The White Girl. In 1857,
Baudelaire published one of his most important works, Les Fleurs du mal, to a mixed reception from
the French press. Dedicated to Théophile Gautier, one of the poems in the book was written to 'Une
Fille blanche aux cheveux roux'. That James would have known of the work is unquestionable - that
he was picking up on these particular themes is debatable.
What has never been explored as a possible source for The White Girl is the German Romantic liter-
ature that was very much in vogue in England during these years. A work such as Wilhelm Meinhold's
Sidonia von Bork, die Losterhexe, later translated by Lady Wilde (Oscar's mother) in 1849 as Sidonia
the Sorceress, was the sort of dark romantic novel that the English reading public adored. In it, a be-
witching beauty, who is powerfully manipulative, captivates all who set eyes on her. She is the ultimate
femme fatale. The most direct and certainly one of the most successful interpretations derived from
the book was Edward Burne-Jones's small watercolour painting of 1860, entitled Sidonia von Bork.
James, while arguably unaware of this particular picture and its companion piece Clara von Bork, nev-
ertheless knew of the general thematic content of work by artists such as Boyce and Millais. Though
not yet close to any of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, James was conversant with their latest developments
and had watched their work carefully.

appendix - page seventeen

Millais, we know, was of special interest to him, and he absorbed ideas from works such as The Vale
of Rest which he had seen with Fantin in the summer of 1859. Possibly, he had also reacted to the
implicit sexual symbolism both in Autumn Leaves, which had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in
1856, and in Spring, shown in 1859. But the spark that may have ignited the idea to paint a single fe-
male figure perhaps came from a painting entitled Thoughts of the Past, by John Roddam Spencer
Stanhope, one of the leser known Pre-Raphaelite artists, which had been exhibited at the Royal Acad-
emy in 1859. Although this painting has never been cited before in this context, there are several rea-
sons to suggest it as the critical primary source. Stanhope's picture, his very first submissionto the
Royal Academy, is less than half the size of The White Girl. Packed with detail and symbolism, it bears
several uncanny resemblences to James's picture. Like The White Girl, it depicts a young red-headed
girl standing alone in a room. Although her outer garment is a blue dressing-gown, underneath her
clothins is white. Beside her, on the right, is a window overlooking the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge
tht throws a light down her right side anda cross the room. Although not immediately apparent, in
James's painting there is also a light source from a window. Early in 1862, James described the fig-
ure in the painting to Du Murier as 'standing against a window which filters the light through a
transparant white muslin curtain - but the figure receives a strong light from the right and therefore the
figure bearing the read hair is one gorgeous mass of brilliant white'. Even the detail of the way the hair
of the two girls is represented - the right-hand locks are brought over the cleavage, while the left-hand
locks flow down behind the shoulder - shows a remarkable similarity.
The notion that Thoughts of the Past was a primary source is given added credence by the existence
of a small, quickly sketched portrait of Joanna dating from this period. Entitled A White Note, the por-
trait is three-quarter length and depicts Joanna standing side-on to a window in almost the same pose
as Stanhope's model. One view from James's apartment on the Boulevard des Batignolles was of
the main railway-line into the Gare Saint-Lazare, and in order perhaps to add a sense of realism he in-
cluded in A White Note one of the many steam engines that passed his studio window every day, like
the glimpse of the shipping on the Thames in Stanhope's picture. In The White Girl, he stripped away
the outside view. There are only two major differences in the pose of the two pictures: Joanna's arms
are folded across her stomach and her head is more inclined towards the window.
One person who knew Stanhope's painting well, and had watched its progress, was James's friend,
George Boyce. It is not inconcievable that they discussed this picture. On several occasions during
1858 Boyce went to Stanhope's studio, and after one particular visit, he described in his diary the pic-
ture of an 'unfortunate' in 'two crises of her life'. The symbolism of the painting, together with Boyce's
description, leaves no doubt as to the narrative content: the girl is a prostitute, 'gripped in remorse as
she thinks of the past'. Such explicit symbolism is not to be found in The White Girl. Unlike Joanna's
depiction in Wapping where James freely admitted that he saw the subject as a prostitute, she is now
represented simply as an ambiguous, beautiful girl, timeless and placeless. The only clues to anything
overtly sexual are implicit: the lily she holds in her left hand, the wolfskin rug and the wilted flowers at
her feet.
James concentrated hard on the painting, working on it, as he told Du Maurier, 'all the winter from eight
in the morning'. Not surprisingly, he regarded it as his most important submission for the next Royal
Academy exhibition. In the contxt of works such as Millais' Autumn Leaves and Rossetti's Ecce An-
cilla Domini, The White Girl can be seen as a quintessentially Pre-Raphaelite subject, painted for an
English audience. It brings James closer to the circle of the Pre-Raphaelites than is traditionally as-
sumed. (Anderson, 2002, p.106)

appendix - page eighteen

 appendix b: the controversy over the name
‘The White Girl’ by Whistler

An article which appeared in the 'Fine Arts Gossip' of th Athenaeum singled out the painting, noting:
Able as this bizarre productions shows Mr Whistler to be, we are certain that in a few years he
will recognize the reasonableness of its rejection by the Academy. It is one of the most incom
plete paintings we have ever met with... But for the rich vigour of the textures, one might con
ceive this to be some old portrait by Zucchero, or a pupil of his practising in a provincial town.
The face is well done, but it is not that of Mr Wilkie Collins's 'Woman in White'.
Those who remember the promise of the artist's 'Lady at the Piano', seen at the Academy,
will gladly see it here.
On 1 July James sought to set the record straight:
The Proprietors of the Berners Street Gallery have, without my sanction, called my picture
'The Woman in White'. I had no intention whatsoever of illustrating Mr Wilkie Collins's novel;
it so happens, indeed, that I have never read it. My painting simply represents a girl dressed
in white standing in front of a curtain.
In light of James's earlier letter to Lucas, his protestations at this juncture seem curious if not a little
weak. The fact that he might object to the literary association with Wilkie Collins is understandable, but
his refutation of the actual title was taking a liberty. Not surprisingly, his letter annoyed the manager of
the gallery, Mr Buckstone, who without James's knowledge wrote to the journal and explained his
side of the story:
Mr Whistler was well aware of his picture being advertised as 'The Woman in White', and
was pleased with the name. There was no intention to mislead the public by the supposition
that it referred to the heroine of Mr Wilkie Collins's novel.
Buckstone's letter brought the matter to a close. James's first impetuous letter ot the press had back-
fired, and, if anything, had made him look a little silly among his friends. But it had got him noticed
again, which was always important. The fact that an artist had written tot he press at all was unusual,
particularly one so relatively new on the scene, and it is possible that James had been influenced by
the example of the highly publicized Antwerp address by Courbet when he used the media to defend
his position. In doing so, James had given his answer to the time-honoured dilemma: who criticizes
the critic? For James the answer was obvious - the artist, the only person qualified to do so. The re-
action to his first letter to the press had, however, hurt, and it was another five years before he had the
courage to repeat the performance. When he did, he made sure that he had all the ammunition.
The admiration of his friends was echoed by sections of the press. Paul Mantz, writing in the Gazette
des Beaux-Arts, had slight reservations about his technique, 'the head... is painted with too rough a
brush', but conceded that the painting was firmly within the French tradition and 'is the principle piece
in the heretics' Salon'. It was Mantz who christened the painting a 'Symphony in White': a title later
used by James who, by adding 'No. 1,' wished to emphasize the formal rather than the narrative qual-
ity of the painting. Louis Etienne, who had praised Fantin, also singled out James's painting - 'this
austere young woman' - for special praise.
(Anderson, 2002, p.134)
appendix - page nineteen
 appendix c: contemporary dress

Woman’s dress (two bodices, skirt, shawl)

American
about 1854
Watered silk plain weave (taffeta moiré), trimmed with silk ribbon, silk machine net, and bobbin lace
Other (center front x bust): 49.5 x 72.4 cm (19 1/2 x 28 1/2 in.)
Other (center back x waist): 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gift of Emily Welles Robbins (Mrs. Harry Pelham Robbins) and The Hon. Sumner Welles, in memory of Georgiana Welle
Sargent
49.881a-d

© 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston appendix - page twenty

 appendix c: contemporary dress

Wedding Dress Worn by Ella Lowell Who Married Arthur Lyman (bodice)
American
1858
Silk and tulle
31.5 cm (12 3/8 in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gift of Ronald T. Lyman

51.1345a

© 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

appendix - page twenty-one

 appendix c: contemporary dress

Woman’s evening dress

about 1865
Silk brocaded taffeta, tulle, satin and blond lace
Center back 24 11/16 in. (62.7 cm)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gift of Mrs. Robert Homans

46.207a-b

© 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

appendix - page twenty-two

 appendix c: contemporary dress

Object
Dress

Date
1869-1870

Techniques
Ribbed silk, trimmed with satin

Artist/designer
Vignon (Madame)

Place
Paris, France

Museum number
T.118-1979

Vivid magenta-coloured silk gives this dress a rich and flamboyant appearance. It was probably
dyed with one of the new synthetic colours produced from the late 1850s onwards, although
intense hues could also be created using natural dyes. The artificial forms of magenta were very
popular and a battle for patents began as dyers sought to distinguish their inventions from those
of their competitors. In reality many of the dye samples from different manufacturers looked
exactly the same, and it was only the exotic names, claims on colourfastness and improved visual
quality that set them apart. Other disputes arose over the health risk posed by the wearing and
production of garments coloured with synthetic dyes. In the early 1870s a German chemist found
traces of arsenic in fabric dyed with magenta, which could leak out in washing, rain or
perspiration. There were also reports of serious skin conditions caused by exposure to aniline
dyes, and a dye firm in Switzerland was forced to close in 1864 due to arsenic pollution.

Brightly coloured fabrics also led to words of advice from the fashion magazines. The
Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine of March 1868 recommended that there should be no more

appendix - page twenty-three

 appendix c: contemporary dress

than 'two positive colours in a lady's toilet' and that 'very bright tints' should be toned down with
white, black or grey to prevent a gaudy appearance. Two shades of the same colour were
considered very fashionable, particularly if the trimmings were of a contrasting fabric. (In this
example, the difference in colour between the thread and material may have become more
evident over time.) Satin bows and pleated bias-cut trimmings complement the ribbed silk of this
dress perfectly, while delicate puffs of tulle inserted into the sleeves soften the impact of the
dramatic colour. These details reveal the skill of eminent couturiers such as Madame Vignon, the
maker of this gown, who was also patronised by the fashionable Empress Eugenie, wife of
Napoleon III.

© Victoria and Albert Museum. See Terms and Conditions of Use.

appendix - page twenty-four

 appendix d: historic dress that influenced Madame Moitessier

Object
Gown

Date
1760-1765
(knot (motif)) 1875-1899
(Decoration) 1875-1899

Techniques
Chinese painted silk, hand-sewn with silk thread, the gown and petticoat trimmed with woven
silk net and silk bobbin lace, and two later decorations trimmed with 19th century green silk
ribbon

Artist/designer
Unknown

Place
London, England
China (silk weaving)
China (silk painted)

Dimensions
(knot (motif)) Length 13.0 cm
(knot (motif)) Width 16.0 cm
(Decoration) Length 38.0 cm
(Decoration) Width 14.0 cm
(Fragment) Length 72.1 cm (approx.)
(Fragment) Width 58.5 cm (approx.)
(Petticoat) Length 107 cm (approx.)
(Gown) Length 143 cm (hem to shoulder)
(Gown) Width 130 cm
(Gown) Depth 110 cm
appendix - page twenty-five
 appendix d: historic dress that influenced Madame Moitessier

Museum number
T.593:1 to 5-1999

Object Type
This elegant robe and petticoat are fine examples of a woman's formal daywear in the early
1760s. In cut, fabric and design they were the height of fashion.

Materials & Making

The pattern on the silk is hand-painted. The fabric was first sized with alum to make the paint
adhere. Next the design was drawn freehand in ink or silverpoint. A variety of pigments were
used, including white lead or a chalk ground for the highlights. The robe and petticoat are hand
sewn with silk thread and trimmed with gathered strips of the hand-painted silk.

Time
The style and design of this ensemble exemplify the Rococo fashion in dress. The pale yellow silk
painted in a variety of bright colours reflects the Rococo palette, while the scalloped sleeve cuffs
and gathered robings create a decorative surface pattern. The robe is a sack back (a style of gown
with the fabric at the back arranged in box pleats at the shoulders and falling loose to the floor
with a slight train), and would have been worn with a wide square hoop under the petticoat.

Places
The silk was woven and painted in China. The width of the fabric and the use of coloured threads
in the selvedge (the cloth edge) differ from European silks. The floral pattern shows the influence
of Western design, indicating that it was made expressly for the European market.

Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Elspeth Evans Bequest

© Victoria and Albert Museum. See Terms and Conditions of Use.

appendix - page twenty-six

 appendix e: historic dress that influenced The White Girl

Woman’s dress
possibly French, worn in America
around 1810
Cotton plain weave (mull), embroidered with silver strips, silk twill tape (drawstrings), linen plain weave tape (interior,
under bust)
Center back (overall): 128.9 cm (50 3/4 in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gift of Emily Welles Robbins (Mrs. Harry Pelham Robbins) and the Hon. Sumner Welles, in memory of Georgiana Welles
Sargent
49.873

© 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

appendix - page twenty-seven

appendix e: some of Ingres’s studies for Madame Moitessier

appendix - page twenty-eight