Wheat Field Under Thunderclouds by Dutch Artist Vincent van Gogh

Anna Mathilda McNeill Whistler, was the mother of the artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler and the subject of her son’s painting popularly known as Whistler’s Mother, though actually titled Arrangement in Grey and Black. This painting, which hangs in the Musée d’Orsay and was reproduced on the 1934 Mother’s Day U.S. postal stamp, as well as in countless art books and encyclopedias, has come to symbolize world motherhood. Certainly, her likeness is better known throughout the world than that of any other North Carolina woman.

Arrangement in Grey and Black, best known under its colloquial name Whistler’s Mother, is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871. The subject of the painting is Whistler’s mother, Anna McNeill Whistler.
It has been variously described as an American icon and a Victorian Mona Lisa.