Anna McNeill Whistler posed for the painting while living in
London with her son at 96
Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea. Several unverifiable stories relate to the painting of the work; one is that Anna Whistler acted as a replacement for another model who could not make the appointment. Whistler originally envisioned painting the model standing up. However, his mother was too uncomfortable to pose standing for an extended period. The work was shown at the 104th
Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Art in London (1872), after coming within a hair's breadth of rejection by the academy. This episode worsened the rift between Whistler and the British art world;
Arrangement was the last painting he submitted for the academy's approval (although his etching of Old Putney Bridge was exhibited there in 1879). Vol. VIII of
The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904 (by Algernon Graves, F.S.A., London 1906) lists the 1872 exhibit as no. 941, "Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's mother", and gives Whistler's address as The White House, Chelsea Embankment. The sensibilities of a
Victorian era viewing audience would not accept what was a portrait exhibited as an "arrangement", hence the addition of the explanatory title ''Portrait of the Painter's mother
. From this, the work acquired its enduring nickname of simply Whistler's Mother
. After Thomas Carlyle viewed the painting, he agreed to sit for a similar composition, this one titled Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2. Thus the previous painting became, by default, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1''. '' (
Thomas Carlyle), 1872–1873 Whistler eventually pawned the painting, acquired in 1891 by Paris's
Musée du Luxembourg. Whistler's works, including this one, had attracted several imitators. Numerous similarly posed and restricted-colour palette paintings soon appeared, particularly by American expatriate painters. For Whistler, having one of his paintings displayed in a major museum helped attract wealthy patrons. In December 1884, Whistler wrote: As a proponent of "
art for art's sake", Whistler professed to be perplexed and annoyed by the insistence of others upon viewing his work as a "portrait". In his 1890 book
The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, he wrote: Both ''Whistler's Mother
and Thomas Carlyle
were engraved by the English engraver Richard Josey. The image has been used since the Victorian era as an icon for motherhood, affection for parents, and "family values" in general, especially in the United States. For example, in 1934, the U.S. Post Office Department issued a stamp engraved with the portrait detail from Whistler's Mother'', bearing the slogan "In memory and in honor of the mothers of America." In the Borough of
Ashland, Pennsylvania, an eight-foot-high statue based on the painting was erected as a tribute to mothers by the Ashland Boys' Association in 1938, during the Great Depression. In summing up the painting's influence, art historian
Martha Tedeschi has stated: ==Exhibitions in America==