Identity:

Elizabeth Greaves, née Greenaway, married Charles William Greaves of Greaves and Son, boat builders. Together they had four children, two boys Henry and Walter who were apprenticed to their father and later became studio assistants to JW, and two girls Eliza and Alice ('Tinnie') Fay who acted as models for their brothers and for JW.

Life:

As a young man Elizabeth Greaves' husband had rowed Turner up and down the Thames. In the 1870s their sons acted in a similar capacity as oarsmen for JW. The Greaves family lived a few doors from JW, at 9 Lindsey Row, and JW would on occasion invite the whole family around to dinner [#11454].

Anna McNeill Whistler wrote to the Greaves family in 1871, following the death of Charles Greaves, declaring that 'he was so friendly always towards us' [#12323].

Bibliography:

UK census 1881 (accessed 2004.03) from http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=census/search_census.asp; Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980; MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995.