Provenance

• By 1905: Elizabeth H. Flower (1842-1920), the widow of Wickham Flower (1835-1904);
• 1908/1911: presented by her to the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon;
• 1911: sold by them to Agnew, London dealers;
• 1911: sold by Agnew's to Knoedler, New York dealers, in June 1911;
• 1912: bought from them by Gertrude Buckingham Whittemore (1874-1941), Naugatuck, CT, and passed to the J. H. Whittemore Company;
• 1941: after her death, the painting remained in the Whittemore family;
• 1994: acquired for the Yale Center for British Art with the Paul Mellon Fund.

It is not known what happened to this nocturne at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy. It is possible that it was bought by Wickham Flower (1835-1904), and bequeathed to his wife in 1904: she certainly owned it by the following year, when she lent it to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London, and was listed as the owner by Bernhard Sickert (1862-1932) in 1908. 1

It was recorded as bought on 17 January 1912 by the Whittemores from Knoedler's. 2

Exhibitions

• 1878: Possibly II Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1878 (cat. no. 53) as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver'.
• 1883: Possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 1883 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.
• 1898: Possibly A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 25) as 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold'
• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 38) as 'Arrangement in Grey and Gold, Nocturne, Battersea Bridge'.

The early exhibition history is uncertain.

1878: However, it is possible that it was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878 when 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' was described in a review of the exhibition, by the art critic of the Times, as 'the Thames in a mist, as we infer from what looks like a clock tower gleaming through the haze.' 3 A foggier description appeared in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 14 May 1878: 'a river in as fog, with yellow streaks here and there for lights.'

In 1878 the Sheffield Independent commented on Whistler's 'half-dozen pictures like plates of smoked glass.' 4 All three Nocturnes (Nocturne in Blue and Silver [YMSM 151], Nocturne in Blue and Gold [YMSM 154], and Nocturne: Grey and Gold - Chelsea Snow [YMSM 174]) were also discussed in the Magazine of Art:

'Three of the small canvases are clever renderings of various effects of London fog, works full of intelligence, and quite subtly adroit in some passages, as in the value of the floating bank of smoke in one of the "Nocturnes" '. 5

1883: The nocturne under discussion may also have been shown in Paris when 'Nocturne en bleu et argent' was described by Alfred Lostalot as a 'marine au clair de la lune' and in another somewhat naive review as 'Là-bas une ville ou village, où trois peupliers et un clocher se dressent en obélisques sur le ciel très sobrement donné; en revanche, une mer, ou un lac immense.' 6

1898: It is less likely that it was the 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold' shown at Goupil's in 1898 (but see Nocturne: Westminster - Grey and Gold [YMSM 144]).

1905: The first definite showing was in 1905, when it was lent by Mrs Flower, the widow of Wickham Flower, to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in London.