A sitter named in two titles, both from one year

The record dates Portrait of Alexander Reid to 1887. The name appears in two titles in this catalogue and both are dated 1887. Named sitters are a Paris and Provence habit here: of the thirty titles that begin portrait of, seven are dated 1887 and twelve dated 1888.

What the record gives

The canvas measures 41.5 by 33.5 centimetres, a small upright, and it is held by the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, which holds two works in this catalogue, dated 1886 and 1887. The measured palette reads as ochre and yellow.

1887, the ochre peak

Ochre dominates twenty-one of the ninety-five works dated 1887 — the highest count of any year in the catalogue, matched only by 1889 at twenty-one. Since no works dated 1884 return the family at all, the whole of that rise happens between 1884 and 1887. That is the kind of claim this catalogue can make, because it is arithmetic over its own records. How the portrait came about, and for whom, are not questions the record answers, and no answer is offered here.