Albumen photograph mounted on cardstock, early 1860s. 350x250 mm; 13 3/4x10 inches (sheet). Signed by Whistler, titled and dedicated "To Jo the White Girl" in ink, lower margin.
An extremely scarce, signed photograph of Whistler's famous painting Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1861, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The portrait represents Joanna Hiffernan, Whistler's red-headed Irish mistress and sometime business manager early on in his career, and is dedicated by Whistler to Hiffernan whom he nicknamed Jo.
In 1864, Hiffernan modeled nude for Gustave Courbet (she is thought to have posed for his then scandalous painting L'Origine du monde, now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris), a major figure in French realist painting of the 19th-century and a friend of Whistler's at the time. All of which enraged Whistler. Soon after, Whistler's mother arrived in London and caused further tensions between the artist and his mistress precipitating their eventual split.
