HARMONY IN PINK AND GREY PORTRAIT OF LADY MEUX 1893 James McNeill Whistler PRINT

Original 1893 9 1/2 inch x 4 3/4 inch Engraving titled HARMONY IN PINK AND GREY, PORTRAIT OF LADY MEUX

Valerie Susan Meux, née Langdon, (1847 – 1910) was a Victorian socialite and the wife of the London brewer, Sir Henry Meux (pronounced "Mews"). She claimed to have been an actress, but was apparently on the stage for only a single season.[1] She is believed to have met Sir Henry at the Casino de Venise in Holborn, where she worked as a banjo-playing barmaid and prostitute under the name Val Reece.
Whistler had become bankrupt in 1879, following his lawsuit against the critic John Ruskin. In 1881, Lady Meux offered Whistler his first significant commission after the bankruptcy. Her full-length portrait, known as Arrangement in Black, No. 5 shows her dressed in black with a long white fur coat, diamond tiara, diamond necklace, and diamond bracelet.
Whistler painted a second portrait of Lady Meux in 1881 called Harmony in Pink and Grey (Portrait of Lady Meux) which belongs to the Frick Collection in New York City. This full-length portrait shows the subject on stage standing before a pinkish-grey curtain, in an obvious allusion to her alleged stage career. She wears a light grey dress trimmed in pink satin. The butterfly emblem that Whistler used as a signature is on the right side of the painting a little below the middle.

From the painting by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903). An American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony.

Published in the Art Journal 1893

Page size 12 1/2 inch x 9 1/4 inch

The print is in very good condition. Printed text to the left of the image and on the reverse with another image by Whistler.