1876, James McNeill Whistler, Fragments from The Blue Girl: Yellow and Blue and Purple and Blue -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label:
The iconic Peacock Room (gallery 12) was painted by James McNeill Whistler in 1876-77 to adorn the private dining room of his London patron, Frederick Leyland. Both men collected Chinese Kangxi-period (1662-1722) blue-and-white porcelains. Whistler's passion for these works was so great, he helped ignite a nineteenth-century British craze deemed "Chinamania." The genesis of his décor for the Peacock Room was, in part, a desire to create a conversation between his paintings and Leyland's Chinese porcelains.
Whistler developed a close relationship with the Leyland family and created several artworks depicting Frederick's wife, Frances, and the four Leyland children. Two panels are all that remain of Whistler's painted portrait of the youngest, Elinor. Whistler placed Elinor between porcelains from her father's collection--a treasure among his treasures. After Leyland and Whistler fell out over Whistler's drastic overhaul of his dining room, the artist destroyed several paintings Leyland had commissioned. These fragments are all that remain of this portrait: they now memorialize the fractured relationship between artist and patron.
1876, James McNeill Whistler, Fragments from The Blue Girl: Yellow and Blue and Purple and Blue -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label:
The iconic Peacock Room (gallery 12) was painted by James McNeill Whistler in 1876-77 to adorn the private dining room of his London patron, Frederick Leyland. Both men collected Chinese Kangxi-period (1662-1722) blue-and-white porcelains. Whistler's passion for these works was so great, he helped ignite a nineteenth-century British craze deemed "Chinamania." The genesis of his décor for the Peacock Room was, in part, a desire to create a conversation between his paintings and Leyland's Chinese porcelains.
Whistler developed a close relationship with the Leyland family and created several artworks depicting Frederick's wife, Frances, and the four Leyland children. Two panels are all that remain of Whistler's painted portrait of the youngest, Elinor. Whistler placed Elinor between porcelains from her father's collection--a treasure among his treasures. After Leyland and Whistler fell out over Whistler's drastic overhaul of his dining room, the artist destroyed several paintings Leyland had commissioned. These fragments are all that remain of this portrait: they now memorialize the fractured relationship between artist and patron.