May 1, 1872: "Whistler's Mother" Goes On Display

May 1, 1872: Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 is put on display at the 104th Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Art in London. It gets mixed reviews, although it probably didn't help that the artist was an American. But why would anyone give a bad review of someone's mother?

Anna Matilda McNeill was born on September 27, 1804 in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1831, she married civil engineer George Washington Whistler. On July 10, 1834, in Lowell, Massachusetts, she gave birth to her 1st child, James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Anna Whistler, 1858

James flunked out of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and became a painter, with "art for art's sake" as his motto. He tended to give his paintings musical titles, such as "Arrangement" and "Nocturne." He studied art in Paris, and moved to London permanently in 1858. Soon after, his paintings began to sell. By then widowed, his mother eventually joined him there.

James McNeill Whistler -- usually listed with three names

In 1871, he intended to begin a painting he wanted to call Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. But the woman he hired as his model failed to show up. So he asked the only woman in the house, his mother, to model for him. Already 66 years old, she got tired of standing, so he brought her a chair. The process proved so tiring, it took 51 sittings.

A year later, the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art. It was poorly received, and did not sell in Anna Whistler's lifetime. She died on January 31, 1881, at age 76. Finally, in 1891, the painting was bought by the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. Whistler was thrilled: "Just think—to go and look at one's own picture hanging on the walls of Luxembourg -- remembering how it had been treated in England -- to be met everywhere with deference and respect... and to know that all this is...  a tremendous slap in the face to the Academy and the rest! Really it is like a dream."

James McNeill Whistler died on July 17, 1903 in London. He was 69 years old. He had married once, and was predeceased by his wife. It is not known how many children he had, but all were illegitimate, and there were at least 1 son and 2 daughters.

The original Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, better known as Whistler's Mother, is now held at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Like many popular paintings, it is often parodied. I've seen one of Mrs. Whistler making her own painting, several with a dog or a cat on her lap, one of her sitting at a computer, one where she's holding a machine gun, one where she's holding a lightsaber like in Star Wars, one with the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, one with Marge Simpson of The Simpsons, one with Queen Elizabeth II of Britain (complete with hat and purse), and, in recognition of its nickname "The Victorian Mona Lisa," one of the Mona Lisa's face on Mrs. Whistler's body.

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May 1, 1872 was a Wednesday. Baseball was the only professional sport in America at the time. There were 2 games that day in the 1st professional baseball league, the National Association:

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Baltimore Canaries, 34-19 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. Yes, that's a baseball game, not a football game. No, that's not the later Philadelphia Athletics of the American League, who moved to Kansas City in 1955 and Oakland in 1968. Yes, that's Baltimore Canaries, not Orioles. As you might guess, instead of oriole orange, they wore canary yellow.

* And the Boston Red Stockings beat the Washington Olympics, 8-1 at the Olympics Grounds in Washington. The Red Stockings went through several names, including Beaneaters, before becoming the Braves in 1912, moving to Milwaukee in 1953 and Atlanta in 1966.