James McNeill Whistler created thinly painted compositions with flat, nearly abstract passages, purposefully subtle in character. He called works such as this one an “arrangement,” emphasizing formal elements rather than subject matter. The painting still serves as a portrait—it was commissioned by Chicago attorney Arthur Jerome Eddy, a collector and advocate of modern art. After seeing Whistler’s work at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in the city, Eddy traveled to the artist’s studio in Paris expressly to sit for this portrait. The two became lasting friends, and Eddy published a book on Whistler after the artist’s death in 1903.