The sketch of the red-haired woman on this palette is said to represent Maud Franklin, Whistler’s model and mistress through the late 1870s and 1880s. When Whistler abandoned Maud in 1888 in order to marry Beatrix Godwin, widow of the architect Edward W. Godwin, Lucas terminated his lengthy association with the flamboyant artist, siding with Maud whom he supported both emotionally and financially for a time. Lucas and Antoine Plassan, a painter of intimate domestic genre scenes, enjoyed a relationship of several decades. Through Lucas, William T. Walters acquired a number of paintings and sketches by the artist.