The poem was inspired by the painting, a form known as ekphrastic poetry, and to Whistler this demonstrated that the visual arts need not be subservient to literature.

Though there are few clues to the meaning and symbolism of the painting, critics have found allusions to the work of Ingres, as well as oriental elements typical of the popular Japonisme.

[8] Hiffernan supposedly had a strong influence over Whistler; his brother-in-law Francis Seymour Haden refused a dinner invitation in the winter of 1863–64 due to her dominant presence in the household.

In a letter to a newspaper, Whistler refuted this, while still showing his respect for Swinburne's work; "those lines" he wrote "were only written, in my studio, after the picture was painted.

And the writing of them was a rare and graceful tribute from the poet to the painter – a noble recognition of work by the production of a nobler one.

[19] The development of this philosophy he owed largely to Swinburne, who pioneered it in his 1868 book William Blake: a Critical Essay.

At the same time, this development reflected Whistler's notion of his own position in the English art world: towards greater legitimacy.

[9] The ring is also an allusion to the Christian sacrament of marriage, which lends a religious aspect to the aestheticism that he and Swinburne were trying to develop.

[21] In The Little White Girl, Whistler can be seen to clearly move away from the realism of the French painter Gustave Courbet, who had previously been a great influence on him.

The painting contrasts soft, round figures with harder geometrical shapes, using "brushy, transparent touches and dense, vigorous strokes.

[23] The fan in the model's hand and the vase on the mantelpiece are oriental elements, and expressions of the Japonisme prevalent in European art at the time.

A contemporary review in the newspaper The Times commented that "Thought and passion are under the surface of the plain features, giving them an undefinable attraction.

"[13] Art critic Hilton Kramer sees in Whistler's portraits a charm and a combination of craft and observational skills that his more radical landscapes lacked.