Provenance

• 1870s?: 'John Calvocaressi' – probably John or Ioannis (Matthew) Calvocoressi (1846-1919).
• 1905: Mrs Alexandra Argenti (1858-1941), London.
• 1927: sold from the estate of William Bell Paterson (1859-1952), London art dealer, to Scott & Fowles, New York;
• 1934: sold by them to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), 7 December 1934;
• 1943: his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum.

According to the 1905 Whistler Memorial catalogue, this painting was painted for 'John Calvocoressi', who was probably John or Ioannis (Matthew) Calvocoressi, one of the Turkish merchants who, like the Greek Ionides and Cavafy families, were patrons of Whistler. 1 John Calvocoressi's son, George John Calvocoressi (1880-1937) married Julia Argenti (1893-1963), the daughter of Pandeli Leonidas Argenti (1853-1911) and Francesca 'Fanny' Argenti née Schilizzi (d. 1926).

The second recorded owner, Alexandra Argenti (1858-1941), born in Liverpool, was the daughter of a Turkish East India merchant, Demetrius Emmanuel Petrocochino (1820-1887). In 1881 she married Leoni Ambrose Argenti (ca 1847-1890) in Kensington; they had two children, Ambrose (1882-1950) and Despina, born in 1885.

There appears to have been some relationship between the Calvocoressi and Argenti families, but their family trees are complex and the identity of Whistler's patrons, and exactly who owned Whistler's painting, and when, is unclear.

There is no actual record of a commission or sale, and it is not known whether it was sold before or after Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879, or who owned it when it was exhibited at the RBA in 1887.

Curiously, by 1892 Whistler appeared to have forgotten the name of the owner, for on 5 March he asked the London dealer David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) to ask Alexander Ionides (1840-1898) for 'the name and address of the Greek gentleman who once bought a Nocturne of Cremorne - Booths on the lawn' and try and borrow it for his Goupil exhibition. 2 Mrs Alexandra Argenti, another member of the Greek community in London, possibly related to the Ionides family, lent it to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905 (cat. no. 21). It is not known when it left her possession. A label on the verso states that it was bought in 1927 from 'the late W. B. Paterson' by Scott & Fowles, who sold it to G. L. Winthrop on 7 December 1934 for $12,500.

Exhibitions

• 1887: 64th Annual Exhibition, Royal Society of British Artists, London, 1887 (cat. no. 158) as 'Nocturne in black and gold: The Gardens'.
• 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. 21).

At the RBA it was priced at £367.10.0; it is identified from a drawing by Théodore Roussel (1847-1926). 3 A reviewer described it: 'faintly illumined dancing figures are seen surrounded by a boundless contiguity shade.' 4