When his 15-year-old model did a runner, Whistler\u2019s mother stepped in. As the triumphant result arrives in Britain, the work\u2019s restorer writes about its creator\u2019s brilliance \u2013 while wishing he\u2019d used better paint<\/p>\n
\u2018One does like to make one\u2019s mummy just as nice as possible.\u201d So James Abbott McNeill Whistler said about his triumphant painting of his mother Anna \u2013 or Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1 as he christened it. Whistler was not a man given to undue modesty, but in 2026 his words sound like a rare understatement. Over the past century and a half, Whistler\u2019s Mother, as it is commonly known, has become America\u2019s equivalent of the Mona Lisa. Anna has never stopped travelling around museums in the US and beyond in those years. This month, for the first time in almost two generations, it will return to London, the city where Anna was painted in Whistler\u2019s Chelsea studio, as part of Tate Britain\u2019s Whistler show<\/a>.<\/p>\n I got to know every inch of the picture over many months, as I restored it for the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay to the state it is in now (I was commissioned by the Louvre, the owner of the painting). Whistler is the only artist whose portrait of his mother has reached such superstar status \u2013 and its history is fascinating.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/0da27343e7018fbeff8b859f0f1bd4ebc9cc61c6\/0_105_3600_2880\/master\/3600.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=4f626f2a4717ec6714bf0d2e318adc27\" "\\"\u2018America\u2019s")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"