The portrait in oils illustrated here is by Mortimer Menpes, who was a great friend and disciple of Whistler
Whistler's father was an engineer and the first five years of his life were spent in St Petersburg in Russia where his father was engaged in a railway project and where the boy learned to speak fluent French. Back in the U.S. after leaving school he first studied for the army at West Point, but failed although he learned his draughtsmanship skills there. He left America, never to return, He first went to Paris to study art under Charles Gleyre, but the principal influence on him was Courbet and also the prints of Hokkusai which had recently been introduced to Europe. He settled in London, where his mother joined him in 1863. He spent a period in Venice where he made two series of etchings which had immense success when exhibited back in London where he had now settled. He became a celebrated portrait and landscape artist. In 1877 he exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and one of his Nocturne paintings was villified by the eminent critic Ruskin ('… flinging a pot of paint in the public's face….'). Whistler sued Ruskin in a celebrated court case and was awarded one farthing damages (a quarter of a penny). This provoked him to write his book The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. His paintings were impressionist, in contrast to his etchings in which he showed his incomparable draughtsmanship. Whistler was flamboyant, argumentative and one of the most interesting characters in the London and Paris fin-de-siècle art scene and he also had a great influence on some of his contemporaries, such as Sickert and countless others.