Back in Paris in April 1858 Whistler began a series of etchings (seven in all) of Paris working women. La Vieille aux Loques towards the end of the sequence, after his summer journey to the Rhine. It is the first of his seated female profile portraits and an early expression of his interest in women silhouetted in doorways. The pose of the old woman recalls Millet’s La Cardeuse.

A later impression in the fourth (final) state, with the corners rounded and Delâtre’s address removed, printed by Frederick Goulding and signed, dated 1903, and dedicated by him to Professor Arthur Thomson with regards. Glasgow 27 iv/iv. (In the third state published as one of the twelve plates of the ‘French Set’. ) On tissue-thin laid japan, with related unevenness of surface. Time stained in the margins.

Professor Arthur Thomson was an anatomist and amateur watercolour painter. He was professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy Schools 1900-1934, and a professor at Oxford from 1905.