Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Blue and Brown – San Brelade's Bay

Provenance

  • Unknown.

Exhibitions

  • 1882: VI Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1882 (cat. no. 342) as 'Blue and Brown – San Brelade's Bay'.

Some comments published in Knowledge, possibly about this painting, were used by Whistler as a commentary on Nocturne: Battersea Reach [YMSM 160] when it was exhibited at Goupil's in 1892:

'A few smears of colour, such as a painter might make in cleaning his paint brushes, and which, neither near at hand nor far off, neither from one side nor from the other, nor from in front, do more than vaguely suggest a shore and bay, was described as a Note in Blue and Brown ... One who found these pictures other than insults to his artistic sense could never be reached by reasoning.' 1

This review was used as a commentary on Nocturne: Battersea Reach [YMSM 160] in 1882 but does not help to identifiy either of the paintings!

Notes:

1: Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Knowledge: An Illustrated Magazine of Science …', no. 32, 9 June 1882, pp. 17-18. Quoted in Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 25). See Getscher 1986 [more], p. 191, J. 101.

Last updated: 13th February 2021 by Margaret