He had a privileged childhood in New England, and grew up surrounded by wealth. Whistler and Hiffernan's backgrounds couldn't have been more contrasting. MacDonald tells BBC Culture that, in her view, Whistler's choice of a white dress was partly because it 'contrasted splendidly with her hair', and the artist was excited by the technical challenge of painting white on white, a challenge the artist Auguste Renoir spoke later of sharing. Yet despite his apparent insouciance, he painted 'Jo' – as he affectionately called her – in white at least five times, three in his symphonies series. While relishing the publicity it attracted, the artist stayed out of the debate on its white-on-white theme, famously retorting that it 'simply represents a girl dressed in white standing in front of a white curtain' – in line with the 'art for art's sake' credo he subscribed to. The book examines the complex, enduring relationship between the artist and Hiffernan, and explores how the sensation around The White Girl, which stood on the threshold of modern art, secured Whistler's place in art history. Whistler was a 'ruthlessly ambitious and hard-working artist' who was 'determined to make his mark', according to Professor Margaret MacDonald, a co-curator of an exhibition at London's Royal Academy, Whistler's Woman in White, as well as co-author of the accompanying book, who is an expert on Whistler. 'A red not golden but copper – as Venetian as a dream!'Ĭontroversy raged around these stereotypes – goddess or 'fallen' woman – and what all that whiteness could possibly symbolise: purity, virginity, morality, heaven, goodness, faith, perfection. The artist was 26, smitten by her beauty, and her hair, which was 'the most beautiful that you have ever seen!' he wrote. At the time of their meeting, Hiffernan, an Irish-born Londoner, was 21. The model, Joanna Hiffernan, was also a muse, companion and much more to the US-born artist, who was living between London and Paris when the pair met in 1860. The 'she' invoking these notable reactions was the subject of The White Girl, a masterpiece created by artist James McNeill Whistler in 1861-2. Paintings of 'rage, rebellion and pain'

Tragedy of the world's first supermodel While art historian Paul Mantz wondered: 'What does she want with her loose hair, her big eyes drowned in ecstasy, her languid attitude?' She was 'charming' felt the poet Charles Baudelaire. No, there was nothing ghostly or unearthly about her, according to the art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary, she was 'a woman after her wedding night,' he said, leaving no doubt what her rosebud lips and dazzled stare evoked in him. She was an 'apparition', enthused the artist Gustave Courbet. She was a vision in a white dress, as she stood, or half floated, before a white curtain.

The woman in white book