Sinfonia in bianco n. 1: La ragazza bianca

Whistler painted this over the winter of 1861 into 1862, and then could not get it shown. The Royal Academy in London turned it down, the Paris Salon turned it down, and it finally hung in 1863 at the Salon des Refusés, the exhibition of works the official jury had rejected, in the same rooms where Manet's picnic scene was scandalising everyone. His White Girl drew even more talk. The model was Joanna Hiffernan, the artist's mistress, standing full length in white against a whitish curtain, a lily in one hand, her feet on a wolf skin whose open jaws show at the hem. Whistler later renamed it a Symphony in White, insisting it was about arranging colour, not telling a story.