Collection Information
Size: 0.2 Linear feet
Summary: The Katherine Prince collection relating to James McNeill Whistler, dates from circa 1834-circa 1892, and 1980, and measures 0.2 linear feet. This small collection of letters, two diaries, mementos, and family history notes, provides scattered documentation of the long friendship between Katherine Prince, her sister Leslie, and Katherine's daughter, Susie Livermore Sutton, with their Lowell, Massachusetts neighbor, James McNeill Whistler.
Biographical/Historical Note
Katherine Prince, her sister Leslie, and her daughter Susie Livermore Sutton (1855-1938) were friends and neighbors to James McNeill Whistler in Lowell, Massachusetts, where Whistler was born in 1834. Whistler and his family moved to Connecticut in 1837, but during their time in Lowell, the Whistlers had become close friends of the Prince family and remained friends with the daughters of the Prince family over many decades. Frequent trips to England and periods of residency in London kept Katherine Prince in close touch with Deborah Whistler and her brother James. Susie Livermore Sutton was a lifelong associate of Whistler. These mementos of an extended family friendship show a familial side of Whistler, who enjoyed the company of his sister Deborah, and their friends in the Prince family.
Provenance
The collection was donated in 2002 by Mary Ellen Prince Doolan, great-great granddaughter of Katherine Prince.
Related Materials
The Archives of American art also holds the James McNeill Whistler collection, 1863-1906, circa 1940.
Language Note
English .