Ethel Whibley

Ethel Whibley, ne Birnie Philip , was the sisterinlaw of James McNeill Whistler. Ethel was a secretary to Whistler who used Ethel as a model for a number of fulllength portraits painted during the period 1888 to the mid1890s. Her sister Beatrice married James McNeill Whistler in 1888, following the death of her first husband Edward William Godwin. In 1896 Ethel married the writer Charles Whibley. Her sister Rosalind Birnie Philip subsequently acted as secretary to Whistler and was appointed Whistlers executrix at his death.

Ethel was born at Chelsea, London onSeptember 1861. Ethel was 4th of ten children of the sculptor John Birnie Philip and Frances Black. Ethel married Charles Whibley in 1896 in the garden of the house occupied by James Abbott McNeill Whistler at n 110 Rue du Bac, Paris.

Source: Wikipedia