The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne dates from 1883 or 1884 and was, according to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), given by Whistler to him about 1884.

Nocturne, British Museum

This work is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 943).

Images

Subject

Site

Nocturne, British Museum

The site has not been identified, but it is in the city of Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands.

Technique

Technique

Nocturne, British Museum

See discussion in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 943).

History

Provenance

• ca 1884: according to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), given to him by the artist;
• 1905: bought from Sickert through Ernest Brown (1881-1962) of the Leicester Galleries, London art dealer.
• Date unknown: at some time with Frederick Keppel (1845-1912), New York dealer.
• By 1925: owned by Ralph King (1855-1926), Cleveland.
• By 1949: owned by Albert Eugene Gallatin (1882-1952);
• 1952: A. E. Gallatin estate;
• 1972: sold from Gallatin's estate, at auction, Parke Bernet, New York, 13 September 1972 (lot 108, repr.) and bought by Ira Spanierman (n/a), New York dealer;
• Date unknown: sold to a private collector, USA.
• By 1976: with the Schweitzer gallery, New York.
• By 1978: with W. and V. Dailey, Los Angeles art dealers;
• 1981/1982: sold to Dr Frederick Mulder (Est. ca 1970), London dealer;
• 1982: bought by the Trustees of the British Museum.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 943).

Exhibitions

No record of an exhibition in Whistler's lifetime has been located.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 943) as 'Nocturne'.

Books on Whistler

• Heijbroek, J. F., and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, Zwolle and Amsterdam, 1997, p. 54, repr. p. 56, fig. 55.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• .James McNeill Whistler Seventeenth Anniversary Exhibition, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, CT, 1949.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Whistler. The Graphic Work: Amsterdam, Liverpool, London, Venice, Agnew and Sons, London; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; City Art Gallery, Glasgow, 1976.
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978.
• Treasures of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, 1990, (no catalogue).
• Heijbroek, J. F., and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, Zwolle and Amsterdam, 1997 (no catalogue).
• Ayako Ono, ホイッスラー展. James McNeill Whistler Retrospective, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyōto, 2014, and Yokohama Museum of Art, 2014–2015.
• Places of the Mind: British Landscape watercolours 1850-1950, British Museum, London, 2017.

Websites

• British Museum website at https://www.britishmuseum.org.