The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Three Peacock Shutters dates from 1876. It appears to be contemporary with the painting of the shutters, and not a memory sketch of them (see Peacock shutters m0991 and Sketch of a Peacock shutter and fighting Peacocks m1603). The shutters were part of Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178.

Three Peacock Shutters, New York Public Library

Shutters in Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, Freer Gallery of Art

According to the Academy, by September 1876 the shutters in the Peacock Room were painted with full-sized peacocks. ¹ On 21 October 1876 F. R. Leyland wrote to Whistler, refusing to pay £2000 suggested by Whistler as the price for the decoration works, when he had only expected the work on the leather and ceiling to take a few days, and since he could not afford £1200 for the peacock shutters he suggested that Whistler should take them away. ²

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 580).

Images

Subject

Titles

Alternative titles have been suggested:

• 'Three Peacock Shutters' (1995, MacDonald). ³
• 'Designs on the Shutters' (1998, Merrill). ⁴

The descriptive title of Three Peacock Shutters is retained here.

Description

Three Peacock Shutters, New York Public Library

The butterfly in glory, radiating light, is the centrepiece of the shutters. All three shutters have their margins defined. There is a scribble of the pen to right.

Site

Three Peacock Shutters, New York Public Library

Shutters in Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, Freer Gallery of Art

The Peacock Room, 49 Prince’s Gate, London.

Technique

Composition

Three Peacock Shutters, New York Public Library

Shutters in Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, Freer Gallery of Art

The composition closely matches the finished designs of the shutters of the Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178.

Conservation History

The paper has an uneven edge along the bottom, where the notepaper was torn in half, the other half being Fighting Peacocks m0581.

History

Provenance

• 1876: drawn for and acquired by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904);
• 1899: given to the New York Public Library.

Exhibitions

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. 580) as 'Three Peacock Shutters'.
• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (room, cat. no. 178).

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Notes and News', The Academy, vol. 10, no. 226, 2 September 1876, p. 249.

Monographs

• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 218, repr. fig. 5.27.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Reff, Theodore, and Allen Staley (eds), From Realism to Symbolism: Whistler and His World, Columbia University, New York, 1971 (cat. no. 25), "Two Sketches of the Peacock Room ", repr. pl. 64.
• Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 32, 186 (cat. no. 106) repr. p. 32.

Websites

• New York Public Library website.