Identity:
Paul B. Leeds was a youthful friend of JW. He was the cousin of Amos Palmer, with whose family JW spent vacations and sick leave from West Point.
Life:
Leeds was one of JW's best friends in Stonington, CT (see Sketches in a letter (M.179)). JW made a sketch of him in 1854, r.: Paul B. Leeds in Amos Palmer's Shop; v.: ground plan (in unknown hand) (M.177). In June 1891 Leeds' niece Sarah Avery McIlhenny of Iberia Parish, Louisiana, sent this drawing to JW to be signed and returned, but JW did neither and it remained in his studio until his death (#03714).
Bibliography:
MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995.