Hall, Philadelphia. In 1884 Whistler sent twenty-five of his pictures to Ireland, where they were exhibited by the Dublin Sketching Club. In 1885 he moved from Tite Street to No. 454 Fulham Road; he made a tour in Belgium and Holland with Mr. W. M. Chase, the American painter; and he first gave the lecture which has become famous, the ‘Ten o'clock.’ In 1884 he had joined the Society of British Artists, which elected him its president in June 1886. His presidency was not of long duration, being determined in June 1888. His ways were too autocratic and his aims too free of the commercial spirit for the majority of his colleagues. In 1887 he travelled in Belgium with his brother, Dr. Whistler, and etched in Brussels. In 1888 Whistler married a pupil of his own, Beatrix Godwin, the widow of E. W. Godwin, and the daughter of John Birnie Philip [q. v.]. He had left Fulham Road for the Tower House, in Tite Street, but the early months after his marriage were spent in France, where he etched many plates in Touraine and its neighbourhood. The following year he worked in Holland, etching in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam and Dordrecht. In 1889 he exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition, in the British section. The next year saw yet another change of abode, to 21 Cheyne Walk, but its chief event was the publication of ‘The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,’ in which Whistler built up a sort of declaration of his artistic faith by reprinting, with comments, his letters to his ‘enemies,’ the Ruskin trial, his ‘Ten o'clock,’ &c. In 1891 his ‘Carlyle’ was bought for Glasgow and his ‘Mother’ for the Luxembourg, the former for 1000l., the latter for 160l. The ‘Luxembourg’ also soon acquired his ‘Old Man Smoking.’ These purchases marked the beginning of the general acceptance of Whistler as a great painter, which was confirmed by the success of an exhibition held at Goupil's in Bond Street in the following year, and by that of his appearance at the Chicago Exhibition. In 1892 he moved to Paris, to a house in the Rue du Bac, where he painted several of the best portraits of his later years, and also busied himself much with lithography and a little with etching. In 1895 he was defendant in an action brought against him in the Paris court by Sir William Eden for refusing to deliver his portrait of Lady Eden, for which he had been paid. Whistler was allowed to keep the picture, but was amerced in costs, and the trial established, so far as France was concerned, an artist's right in his own work. In 1899 he published ‘The Baronet and the Butterfly’ [i.e. Whistler's monogram], a report of the litigation.
During 1895 Whistler was for a time at Lyme Regis, and his picture ‘The Master-Smith of Lyme Regis’ is at the Boston Museum: he also had a studio at No. 8 Fitzroy Street, and afterwards a cottage at Hampstead. There Mrs. Whistler died on 10 May 1896. After her death, by which he was profoundly affected, he stayed with Mr. William Heinemann, in Whitehall Court, for nearly three years. In 1898 he was elected president of the newly founded International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Engravers. It was a post for which he was peculiarly fitted in one way, at least, for he had excelled in all the forms of art practised by his colleagues, with the exception of sculpture. He had painted in water-colour as well as oil, he had mastered dry-point as well as etching, he had lithographed, and he had proved himself a decorator of genius. He held this dignity till his death, and to the society's affairs he devoted much of his energy during his last years. In the same year he had been concerned in founding an atelier for students in Paris, partly for the benefit of a former model, Madame Carmen Rossi, after whom it was subsequently called the ‘Académie Carmen.’ This he visited as master during the three years of its existence. In 1900 he received a grand prix for painting and another for engraving at the Paris Exhibition du Centenaire, exhibiting this time in the American section. In 1900 he made a short stay in Ireland, in a house called Craigie, at Sutton, near Dublin, and at the end of the same year made an expedition to Tangier, Algiers, the South of France, and Corsica, in search of health. In May 1901 he returned to England, which he never left again except for a short visit to Holland in 1902. He died on Friday, 17 July 1903, at 74 Cheyne Walk, and was buried in Chiswick churchyard, by the side of his wife and not far from the grave of Hogarth. An elaborately sculptured tomb by Mr. Edward Godwin was erected in 1912. Whistler had no issue.
Whistler was an officer of the Legion of Honour, a member of the Société Nationale des Artistes Francais, commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy, chevalier of the Order of St. Michael, honorary member of the Academy of St. Luke, Rome, and of the Royal Academies of Bavaria and Dresden, and LL.D. of Glasgow University.
