Arrangement in Yellow And Grey: Effie Deans

Effie Deans is a fictional character from The Heart of Midlothian, a novel by Sir Walter Scott, written in 1818. Effie had been imprisoned on a false charge: accused of having killed her illegitimate child. When an angry crowd stormed the jail, she had an opportunity to escape but decided to stay. Prison seemed a better prospect than a life of freedom with a tarnished reputation. At the time Whistler painted this portrait a play based on the story of Effie Deans was running at the Albion Theatre in London. Whistler may well have seen the play and been inspired by Effie's tragic fate. Whistler considered the formal and painterly qualities of his works more important than any reference to what they depicted. He often gave paintings musical titles indicating the colours in the composition. This is one of a series of studies he called ‘Arrangements’. The artist's model here was his lover, Maud Franklin. Whistler painted her full-length, set against a neutral background, evidently applying the paint with brisk strokes of the brush.