Painted in 1861, Whistler originally intended Symphony in White, No. 1 (sometimes referred to by it's original name The White Girl) to be displayed in the prestigious annual exhibition of the Royal Academy, although when he submitted it Whistler apparently expected it to be rejected:
"I note that The White Girl has made a a fresh sensation for and against, some stupid painters don't understand it at all […] perhaps the old duffers may refuse it altogether"
White Girl was submitted to the Academy along with three etchings, all three of which were accepted, while the painting was not. Instead it was exhibited at the Berners Street Gallery in London, where it was shown under the title The Woman in White, also the title of a popular novel at the time by Wilkie Collins. It was this coincidence that made English critics of the time see the painting simply as an illustration rather than a completely original work of art. One critic called it "...one of the most incomplete paintings we ever met with." and many were disappointed with its lack of resemblance to the novel's heroine. Whistler detested this view of The White Girl. A firm believer in "art for art's sake" Whistler asserted that the gallery chose the title without consulting him, and said:
"I had no intention whatsoever of illustrating Mr Wilkie Collins' novel. My painting simply represents a girl dressed in white standing in front of a white curtain."
In the Gazette des Beaux–Arts, Paul Manz referred to it as a "symphony in white," noting a musical correlation to Whistler's paintings that the artist himself would address in the early 1870s, when renaming many of his works. This musical analogy further emphasized Whistler's philosophy that the composition was the central thing, not the subject matter. The title was probably also inspired by Théophile Gautier's 1852 poem Symphonie en Blanc Majeur.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_in_White,_No._1:_The_White_Girl#cite_note-17
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