Joanna Hiffernan
Encyclopedia
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
artists' model
Model (art)
Art models are models who pose for photographers, painters, sculptors, and other artists as part of their work of art. Art models who pose in the nude for life drawing are usually called life models...
and muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
who was romantically linked with American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
James Abbott McNeill Whistler and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
painter Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
.
Early life
Hiffernan was a Roman Catholic. Her father, Patrick Hiffernan, is described by Whistler's friends, Joseph PennellJoseph Pennell
Joseph Pennell was an American artist and author.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, and first studied there, but like his compatriot and friend, James McNeill Whistler, he afterwards went to Europe and made his home in London...
and his wife Elizabeth
Elizabeth Robins Pennell
Elizabeth Robins Pennell was an American writer who, for most of her adult life, made her home in London...
, as being like "Captain Costigan," the drunken Irishman in Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
's novel Pendennis
Pendennis
Pendennis is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray. It is set in 19th century England, particularly in London. The main hero is a young English gentleman Arthur Pendennis who is born in the country and sets out for London to seek his place in life and society...
. The Pennells also described him as "a teacher of polite chirography (calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
)" who used to speak of Whistler as "me son-in-law." Her mother, Katherine Hiffernan, died in 1862, aged 44. Joanna Hiffernan had a sister called Bridget Agnes Hiffernan, later Singleton. The artist Walter Greaves
Walter Greaves (artist)
Walter Greaves was a British painter, etcher and topographical draftsman.-Biography:The son of Charles William Greaves, a Chelsea boat builder and waterman, and his wife, Elizabeth Greenway, Greaves was born in 1846 at 31 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London. His father had been J. M. W. Turner's boatman...
, who began tuition with Whistler in 1863 and who knew Hiffernan well, claimed that she had a son called Harry but no trace of him can be found in official records.
Artist's model
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"She was not only beautiful. She was intelligent, she was sympathetic. She gave Whistler the constant companionship he could not do without."
Whistler's family did not approve of Hiffernan, as unmarried artists' models, and especially those who posed nude, were considered at that time to be little better than prostitutes. However, Hiffernan seems only to have modelled for friends, so perhaps the objections to her made by Whistler's family were based more on social class than on Hifferman's personal character. When Whistler's mother visited from America in 1864, alternative accommodation had to be found for Hiffernan, who also seems to have been the cause of Whistler's quarrel with Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros , painter, etcher and sculptor was born in Dijon. His father was an accountant, and came from the neighbouring village of Véronnes....
in 1863.
She was in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
with Whistler during the summer of 1861, and while in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
during the winter of 1861–62 she sat for Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl at a studio in Boulevard des Batignolles and in 1864–65 she posed for Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl
Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl
Symphony in White, No. 2, also known as The Little White Girl is a painting by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The work shows a woman in three-quarter figure standing by a fireplace with a mirror over it. She is holding a fan in her hand, and wearing a white dress. The model is Joanna Heffernan, the...
. It is possible that this is when she met Whistler's friend and fellow artist, Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
, for whom she later modeled. There is some thought that she was the model for Courbet's L'Origine du monde
L'Origine du monde
L’Origine du monde is an oil-on-canvas painted by French artist Gustave Courbet in 1866. It is a close-up view of the genitals and abdomen of a naked woman, lying on a bed with legs spread...
, which depicts a nude woman's pubic area.
Séance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
s with Whistler at Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...
's house in Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
in 1863, and spent the summer and autumn of 1865 in Trouville
Trouville
Trouville is the name or part of the name of several communes of Normandy, France:* Trouville, in the Seine-Maritime department* Trouville-sur-Mer, in the Calvados department, arguably the most famous of these communes, and commonly referred to as Trouville* Trouville-la-Haule, in the Eure department...
with Whistler. In 1866, Whistler gave Hiffernan power of attorney
Power of attorney
A power of attorney or letter of attorney is a written authorization to represent or act on another's behalf in private affairs, business, or some other legal matter...
over his affairs while he was in Valparaiso
Valparaíso
Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...
for seven months, making provision for household expenses and giving her the authority to act as an agent in the sale of his works.
During Whistler's absence, Hiffernan travelled to Paris and posed for Courbet in The Sleepers, or Le Sommeil which depicts two naked women in bed asleep. It is likely that she had an affair with Courbet at this time, After the end of his relationship with Hiffernan, Whistler returned to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, but left a will in her favour.
In addition to being an artists' model, Hiffernan herself also drew and painted.
Later years
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
with Maud Franklin
Maud Franklin
Maud Franklin was an English artist and the mistress of and model for artist James McNeill Whistler.Franklin was born in Bicester, Oxfordshire, England, one of six children of Charles Franklin, an upholsterer and cabinetmaker, and Mary Clifton, after whom she was christened 'Mary'...
, his then mistress. The 1881 English census recorded Hiffernan, her sister Bridget and Charles Hanson as visitors of Charles Singleton (whom Bridget would later marry) at 2 Thistle Grove.
Little is known of Hiffernan after 1880. A woman reported to Juliette Courbet (1831–1915), the sister of Gustave Courbet, in a letter of 18 December 1882, that "the beautiful Irish girl" was in Nice, where she sold antiques and some pictures by Courbet. It is believed that Hiffernan married a man named Abbot some time after 1881, possibly on the Continent
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
The art collector Charles Lang Freer
Charles Lang Freer
Charles Lang Freer was an American railroad-car manufacturer from Detroit, Michigan who gave to the United States his art collections and funds for a building to house them. The Freer Gallery of Art founded by him is part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..-Early life:Freer was...
met Hiffernan when he was a pallbearer at Whistler's funeral in 1903 when she came forward in heavy mourning
Mourning
Mourning is, in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone. The word is also used to describe a cultural complex of behaviours in which the bereaved participate or are expected to participate...
to pay her last respects. His fellow art patron Louisine Havemeyer
Louisine Havemeyer
Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer was an art collector, feminist, and philanthropist. In addition to being a patron of impressionist art, she was one of the more prominent contributors to the suffrage movement in the United States...
(1855–1929) later recorded the incident as she heard it from Freer:
"As she raised her veil and I saw ... the thick wavy hair, although it was streaked with gray, I knew at once it was Johanna, the Johanna of Etretat, 'la belle Irlandaise' that Courbet had painted with her wonderful hair and a mirror in her hand.... She stood for a long time beside the coffin—nearly an hour I should think.... I could not help being touched by the feeling she showed toward her old friend. "Did Maud [Franklin] come?" [Havemeyer] asked. "Yes" answered Mr. Freer, "the same afternoon. She had come all the way from Paris and was very much affected as I uncovered Whistler's face for her to see him." ... [One could see, Freer mused] "that the real drama of [Whistler's] life was bound up in the love of [these] devoted women."
Legacy
Hiffernan is the narrator in FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
writer Christine Orban's 2000 novel J’étais l’origine du monde (I was the Origin of the world), published in 2000. In the novel Hiffernan is Courbet’s lover and the model for the famous painting. Bernard Teyssèdre, in Le roman de l’origine (The Novel of the Origin, 1996), whose main character is the painting itself, also suggests that Joanna Hiffernan was the model for the painting.
Literature
- Pennell, Elizabeth Robins and Pennell, Joseph: The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, 1908, London and Philadelphia, Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott company ; London : W. Heinemann
- Pennell, Elizabeth Robins and Pennell, Joseph: The Whistler Journal, 1921, Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company
- Du Maurier, Daphne (Ed.): The Young George du Maurier: A Selection of his Letters, 1860–67, Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1952
- Ionides, Luke: Memories, 1925, Paris
- Lechien, Isabelle Enaud: James Whistler, le peintre et le polémiste 1834–1903, Paris, ACR Édition, 1995 ISBN 2-86770-087-6
- Teyssèdre, Bernard: Le roman de l’origine, Paris, Gallimard, 1996 ISBN 9782070784110
- Guégan, Stéphane & Haddad, Michèle: L'ABCdaire de Courbet et le realisme, Paris, Flammarion, 1996 ISBN 978-2-08012-468-5
- Orban, Christine: J’étais l’origine du monde, Paris, Albin Michel, 2000 ISBN 9782226116697
- MacDonald, Margaret F. et al.: Whistler, Women and Fashion, 2003, New Haven and London, Yale University Press ISBN 9780300099065
- Savatier, Thierry: L'Origine du monde, histoire d'un tableau de Gustave Courbet, Paris, Bartillat, 2006 ISBN 2-84100-377-9