Whistler's Mother, after Whistler

This print by the accomplished etcher Henri Charles Guérard reproduces Whistler’s painting on the occasion of its exhibition at the Paris Salon of 1883, where it was shown under the more simple title “Portrait de ma mère” (Portrait of my mother). The print was commissioned for publication in the Gazette des beaux-arts, the most widely read French journal on the arts. Though it doubtlessly helped circulate the painting’s image to a French audience, Whistler later dismissed the print, preferring to control the authorship of such images more directly.