Walter Sickert considers the portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell to be
Mr. Whistler's finest portrait. I submit, however, that the attitude
is theatrical and not very explicit. It is a movement that has not
been frankly observed, nor is it a movement that has been frankly
imagined. It has none of the artless elegance of Nature; it is full of
studio combinations; and yet it is not a frankly decorative
arrangement, as the portrait of the mother or Miss Alexander. When
Hals painted his Burgomasters, he was careful to place them in
definite and comprehensible surroundings. He never left us in doubt
either as to the time or the place; and the same obligations of time
and place, which Hals never shirked, seem to me to rest on the
painter, if he elects to paint his sitter in any attitude except one
of conventional repose.

Lady Archibald Campbell is represented in violent movement, looking
backwards over her shoulder as she walks up the picture; yet there is
nothing to show that she is not standing on the low table on which the
model poses, and the few necessary indications are left out because
they would interfere with the general harmony of his picture; because,
if the table on which she is standing were indicated, the movement of
outstretched arm would be incomprehensible. The hand, too, is somewhat
uncertain, undetermined, and a gesture is meaningless that the hand
does not determine and complete. I do not speak of the fingers of the
right hand, which are non-existent; after a dozen attempts to paint
the gloved hand, only an approximate result was obtained. Look at the
ear, and say that the painter's nerves did not give wayonce or twice.
And the likeness is vague and shadowy; she is only fairly
representative of her class. We see fairly well that she is a lady _du
grand monde_, who is, however, not without knowledge of _les environs
du monde_. But she is hardly English--she might be a French woman or