Sir William Nicholson

In 1890s England, artist James McNeill Whistler embodied Baudelaire's concept of the Regency dandy as a provocateur. Nicholson's dramatic portrait reflects Whistler's affinity for a performative form of dandyism-a prototype of camp-which formed a vital part of his celebrity. Whistler's characteristic sartorial style included a dark suit, monocle, stiff collar, and walking stick, and he and Oscar Wilde have come to be seen as paradigms of excessive fin-de-siecle dandyism. Contemporaries and rivals, they responded to one another's style as they both looked to Regency and French interpretations of the artist dandy's role in society.