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Whistler is interested in Far Eastern painting, he collects porcelain and fabrics.
In this Anglo-Japanese spirit, he decorated a room in brilliant blue greens enhanced with gold leaf for ship-owner Frederick Leyland and his wife.
He argues violently with his sponsor over his fees and symbolizes their relationship with two peacocks’ brushstrokes against each other with a bag of money.
The industrialist and esthete Charles Lang Freer will buy the place to install his collection of works by Whistler. The painter married in 1888 but lost his wife four years later to cancer.
Whistler, known for his sharp mind, liked to chat with Oscar Wilde, but when the latter was publicly recognized as homosexual, he openly mocked him. Whistler died ruined in 1903 and was buried in the Church of St Nicholas in London in the district of Chiswick.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
L’Homme à la pipe
Vers 1859
huile sur toile, H. 41,0 ; L. 33,0 cm.
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski