Take the picture of my mother, exhibited at the Royal Academy as an "Arrangement in Grey and Black." Now that is what it is. To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public do to care about the identity of the portrait?
--James McNeill Whistler, complaining about the unwanted nickname that his painting increasingly was becoming known by (I'll let you guess what it is.) These days it hangs not in the Royal Academy but in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.
