Technique

Blue and Silver: The Devonshire Cottages, Freer Gallery of Art

It was painted with thin washes, freely applied, plus areas of thicker impasto applied with a palette knife.

Conservation History

In August 1895 Whistler suggested that his sister-in-law Helen ('Nellie') Euphrosyne Whistler (1849-1917) send him 'the little sketch of sky and tops of houses that hangs in the bedroom up stairs - I could sign it and look at it and see if it may not be worth something in a proper frame.' 1 Just over a week later the artist wrote to his brother William that he had 'cleaned and signed your little picture of the Devonshire sky and little village - and it comes out beautifully! - I have even added a few touches.' 2 Then he explained further: 'Besides it was lost in dirt! I washed it.' 3 Perhaps that was why he changed its name from the 1884 title, 'Green and opal: The Village' to 'the Devonshire Cottages - Blue & Silver' in 1895! 4

Blue and Silver: The Devonshire Cottages, Pennell 1908, vol. 2, repr. f.p. 162

The reproduction in the Pennells' biography of 1908 shows the two figures and the butterfly signature, now rather faint, to have been distinct. Therefore, they may have been among the last 'few touches' which Whistler added in August 1895 before selling the picture to the Goupil Gallery, and either faded or were partially removed in later cleaning. 5

The painting received regular conservation treatment at the Freer Gallery of Art. It was relined in 1922, resurfaced in 1931 and 1937, and cleaned and resurfaced in 1951; and a scratch 'across the remnants of the signature' was repaired in 1971. 6

Blue and Silver: The Devonshire Cottages, photograph, 1980

Blue and Silver: The Devonshire Cottages, Freer Gallery of Art

Frame

In 1895 Whistler wrote that the picture 'had really no frame to it and you cant really know anything of a painting without a frame', so he had it framed for sale. 7