Arrangement in Black: Portrait of F. R. Leyland

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.