Misinterpretation

 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.