Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, best known under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother or Portrait of Artist's Mother, is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871. The subject of the painting is Whistler's mother, Anna McNeill Whistler. The painting is 56.81 by 63.94 inches, displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design. It is held by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, having been bought by the French state in 1891. It is one of the most famous works by an American artist outside the United States. It has been variously described as an American icon and a Victorian Mona Lisa.
Whistler's Mother
Anna Whistler circa 1850s
Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 2 (Thomas Carlyle), 1872-73
1934 U.S. postage stamp
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake".
Arrangement in Gray: Portrait of the Painter (self portrait, c. 1872), Detroit Institute of Arts
Portrait of Whistler with Hat (1858), a self-portrait at the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862), The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Paris, c.1863, albumen print by Etienne Carjat, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, D.C.