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

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The Seashore

Provenance

  • By 1905: Sir William Eden (1849-1915), London;
  • 1918: sold at auction, Eden sale, Christie's, London, 1 March 1918 (lot 164) as 'Green and Grey', and bought by Sampson, London art dealer;
  • 1919: Barbizon House, London art dealers;
  • 1919/1920: Sir Patrick Ford MP (1880-1945);
  • 1945: bequeathed to Ford's daughter Marjorie Elaine Ford (Mrs Alan Murray) (b. 1913);
  • 1970: sold by her at auction, Sotheby's, London, 22 April 1970 (lot 204) as 'Green and Grey: The Seashore', and bought by Williams & Son, for £1800, on behalf of Ira Spanierman (n/a), New York art dealer;
  • 1974: sold at auction, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 23 May 1974 (lot 41c), bought in;
  • 1978: sold to Davis & Long, New York art dealers, December 1978;
  • 1979: sold by Davis & Long to Dr John Larkin (n/a), White Bear Lake, Minnesota, in June 1979;
  • 2009: given by Dr John and Colles Larkin and the John R. Van Derlip Fund to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

At the Eden sale it was bought by Sampson for £189.0.0, according to David Croal Thomson (1855-1930); as 'Green and Grey: the Seashore', it was with Thomson's firm, Barbizon House, by 1919. It was owned shortly afterwards by Sir Patrick Ford and passed by family succession to his grand-daughter, Mrs M. E. Murray, who sold it at auction.

Exhibitions

  • 1886: possibly 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (not identified).
  • 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. 104) as 'The Seashore'.

It was almost certainly exhibited in the 1886 Whistler exhibition at Messrs Dowdeswell, but it has not been identified under any of the recorded titles.

It was lent by Sir William Eden to the Whistler memorial exhibition in London in 1905.

Last updated: 13th October 2020 by Margaret