James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder, 1876–78, oil on canvas, The Frick Collection
Arrangement in Brown and Black:
Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder
Rosa Corder, an artist herself, was acquainted with Whistler through her lover and his agent, Charles Augustus Howell. Posed with her left arm on her hip,
her back straight and head high, she wears the tailored jacket and loose skirt favored by the nineteenth-century
professional woman.
The painting is one of several in which Whistler explores the juxtaposition of black
forms against a black background, a practice inspired
by the dark palettes of some seventeenth-century
Spanish and Dutch paintings. Strong light and deep
shadows give form to Corder’s plumed hat, which
provides a visual counterpoint to her thick brown hair.
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