James McNeill Whistler made sure that his dazzling life — Monet, Manet and Proust, modelling ‘Elstir’ on him, were friends and acquaintances — was well-documented for posterity. Even Monty Python picked up on his wit which some say outshone that of his friend Oscar Wilde. But when Sarah Walden restored Whistler’s Mother for the Louvre, (now on display in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France), she discovered that he had remained entirely silent about the circumstances of his most famous masterpiece. Fascinated by the woman in the picture and the troubled situation from which the painting had emerged, she gradually pieced together the multi-faceted story of its creation and beyond in this elegantly researched book.

As well as the Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, MA, Whistler's birthplace, major works by the artist can be seen in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; National Museum of Asian Art, Washington DC; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Frick Collection, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Cincinnati Art Museum; and Detroit Institute of Arts.