The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Sketch of 'Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz', Library of Congress

Sketch of 'Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz' was drawn in a letter to Ignace-Henri-Jean-Théodore Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) dating from the first week of October 1862. ¹

For more information on this work, see MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 307).

Images

Subject

Site

Guéthary, near Biarritz, France.

Sitter

Sketch of 'Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz', Library of Congress

The women on the shore were supposed to include Joanna Hiffernan (b. ca 1843-d.1886), but in the final composition, the figures were omitted.

Technique

Composition

Sketch of 'Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz', Library of Congress

Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz, Hill-Stead Museum, CO.

Whistler's sketch shows numerous figures, which were eliminated in the final version of Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz y041 (Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut), although there are traces of the man standing on the rock.

History

Provenance

• 1862: sent to Ignace-Henri-Jean-Théodore Fantin-Latour (1836-1904), Paris;
• 1904: bequeathed to his wife, Victoria Fantin-Latour née Dubourg (1840-1926);
• 1926/1930: sold by her executors, M. M. Tempelaer, to Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936);
• 1936: transferred to the E. R. and J. Pennell collection, Library of Congress.

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 307).

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 307) as "Sketch of 'Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz'".
• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 41) oil, 'Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Bénédite, Léonce, 'Artistes Contemporains: Whistler', Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 33, 1905, pp. 403-10, 496-511; vol. 34, 1905, pp. 142-58, 231-46, at vol. 33, p. 500.

Books on Whistler

• Duret, Théodore, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1904, pp. 18-19, repr. p. 24.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., 'Joanna Hiffernan and James Whistler: an Artistic Partnership' in Margaret F. MacDonald (ed.), The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and Washington, 2020, pp. 15-31.

Websites

• The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855-1903, edited by Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp; including The Correspondence of Anna McNeill Whistler, 1855-1880, edited by Georgia Toutziari. Online edition, University of Glasgow.