The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Red and brown – Hoxton dates from 1885/1886.

Red and brown – Hoxton, Freer Gallery of Art

This is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1004).

Images

Subject

Site

Red and brown – Hoxton, Freer Gallery of Art

Hoxton, in Shoreditch, a square in the east end of London. At one time this was wrongly thought to be 'Onstead' or Oxted, a village in Surrey. Whistler identified it as 'little Hoxton' for John James Cowan (1846-1936). ¹

Technique

Technique

The Illustrated London News expressed 'unfeigned admiration' for 'Street Scene, Hoxton' [sic], and enquired how Whistler achieved 'that marvellous transparency of colour which he can throw at times into his sea and air.' ²

See technical details in Whistler in Watercolour, Freer|Sackler, Washington, 2019, website.

History

Provenance

• 1990: sold in February through Messrs Dowdeswell to a collector.
• By 1898: acquired by Goupil, London dealers.
• By 1901: bought from Alexander Reid (1854-1928), Glasgow dealer, by John James Cowan (1846-1936), Edinburgh;
• 1904: bought on 13 June from Cowan through William Stephen Marchant (1868-1925), London dealer, by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919);
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Kay described 'a lively little squib in red and brown, being a view in humdrum Hoxton … as airy and careless as the movements of a butterfly.' ³

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1004).

Exhibitions

• 1886: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 60) as 'Red and Brown – Hoxton'.
• 1898: Pictures, Drawings, Bronzes, Pottery, Antique Furniture, Decorative Metal Work, &c, Goupil Gallery, at Howard Gallery, Sheffield, 1898 (cat. no. 57) as 'Street Scene'.
• 1896: Probably 19th Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Glasgow, 1896 (cat. no. 355) as 'Houses in Chelsea'.
• 1904: 78th Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1904 (cat. no. 81) as 'Onstead, Surrey' [sic].

Due to the terms of Freer's will, this cannot now be lent to another venue.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1004) as 'Red and brown – Hoxton'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 60) as 'Red and Brown – Hoxton'.
• Pictures, Drawings, Bronzes, Pottery, Antique Furniture, Decorative Metal Work, &c, Goupil Gallery, at Howard Gallery, Sheffield, 1898 (cat. no. 57) as 'Street Scene'.
• Probably 19th Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Glasgow, 1896 (cat. no. 355) as 'Houses in Chelsea'.
• 78th Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1904 (cat. no. 81) as 'Onstead, Surrey' [sic].

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Whistler Exhibition', Illustrated London News, London, 15 May 1886, p. 14.

Journals 1855-1905

• de Kay, Charles, 'Whistler. The head of the Impressionists', Art Review, vol. 1, no. 1, 1886, pp. 1-3, at p. 1.
• Sickert, Oswald, ‘The Oil Paintings of James McNeill Whistler’, The Studio, vol. 30, October 1903, pp. 3-10, at p. 4.

Books on Whistler

• Glazer, Lee, Emily Jacobson, Blythe McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor: Lovely Little Games, New Haven and London, 2019.
• Menpes, Mortimer, Venice, London, 1904, repr. f.p. 112 as 'Chelsea Shops'.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 193, pl. 120.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.79a-b, as 'Red and Brown-Hoxton'.
• Whistler in Watercolour, Freer|Sackler, Washington, 2019, website.