Arrangement in Black: Portrait of F. R. Leyland

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) · 1870-1873

Whistler derived the somber palette and tall, narrow format of this painting of his first important patron from portraits by the Spanish court painter Diego Velázquez (1599¬–1660). Whistler was eager both to please Leyland and to fulfill his own artistic ambition with this portrait, the first in a series of Arrangements in Black. Leyland described the protracted process of posing as “my own martyrdom,” but in the end the self-made shipping magnate was pleased to be portrayed in the manner of a baroque aristocrat.