The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Variations in Violet and Green dates from 1871. It was signed and dated '71'. ¹

Variations in Violet and Green, Musée d'Orsay

According to Whistler's mother, Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881), one afternoon in the summer of 1871 she 'felt too feeble to sit' for her portrait (Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother y101) so Whistler took her for a trip down the Thames. When they returned, as she wrote:

'the river in a glow of rare transparency an hour before sunset, he was inspired to begin a picture & rushed upstairs to his studio, carrying an easel & brushes, soon I was helping by bringing the several tubes of paint he pointed out that he should use & I so fascinated I hung over his magic touches til the bright moon faced us from the window and I exclaimed oh Jemie dear it is yet light enough for you to see to make this a moonlight picture of the Thames.

I never in London saw such a clear atmosphere as this. … So now Kate I send you by this mail steamer an ["]Athenaeum" a weekly paper with a criticism on these two pictures exhibited now in "The Dudley Gallery" it is so true. The Moonlight is not more lovely than Sunset tho the Critique gives it only the mede [sic] of praise.' ²

The 'Moonlight' described by Mrs Whistler was exhibited in London at the Dudley Gallery in 1871 (cat. no. 265) as 'Harmony in Blue-Green - Moonlight' and is considered to have been Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103. The other picture was Variations in Violet and Green, the picture under discussion.

Whistler's mother mentioned that in the summer of 1871, four recent paintings, 'took Jemie out often[,] work in the open air was like the renewal of Etching & gave zest to Studio at intervals.' ³ These probably included Variations in Violet and Green y104, as well as Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103 and Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea y105.

Images

Subject

Titles

Suggestions for the title are as follows:

• 'Variations in Violet and Green' (1871, Dudley). ⁴
• 'Green & Pink' (1886/1887, Whistler). ⁵
• 'Variations in Violet and Green' (1980, YMSM). ⁶

'Variations in Violet and Green' is the preferred title.

Description

Variations in Violet and Green, Musée d'Orsay

The view of a river, in vertical format. At lower left, a woman is sitting on a bench with a woman standing to right of her on a riverside-road, which runs diagonally across the foreground from lower left, upwards to right. At lower right another woman stands looking over the shore to the river. A sailing boat is on the river, and in the distance there are grey buildings under a cloudy sky.

Site

The River Thames in Chelsea, London.

A copy of, or painting inspired by, this oil, was painted, possibly by Walter Greaves, and was by 2015 in a private collection.

Comments

Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975) observed that the foreground arrangement was still reminiscent of Whistler's Greco-Japanese sketches of 1867-1870, but the setting, showing the Thames at Battersea Reach, presaged the Thames Nocturnes of the 1870s. ⁷

Technique

Composition

Variations in Violet and Green, Musée d'Orsay

Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea, Freer Gallery of Art

In size and subject it is a pair with Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea y105.

Technique

Variations in Violet and Green, Musée d'Orsay

It is painted very thinly on a dark ground.

Conservation History

It was cleaned and restored before it was bought by the Musée d'Orsay in 1995.

Frame

1871: Flat Whistler, incised basket weave with painted butterfly.

Variations in Violet and Green, frame

It has four panels separated by reeding, the outer and inner panels decorated with a small basket-weave design, and the broad central panel with a large basket-weave design; signed with a butterfly and dated ‘1871’.

Whistler wrote to Walter Greaves concerning the newly framed picture in 1871:

'Have they managed to fit in the little gold flat you know that Clay took down to the Gallery and that they wouldn't let him put in the frame, but fixed it in themselves? Does it look all right? They have not taken off too much of the butterfly have they?' ⁸

The current butterfly is slightly oddly placed and not entirely consistent with the style of butterfly used by Whistler at that time: despite the dated inscription, it is possible that it was added at a later date. It was, however, added before 1911 when the frame was reproduced by the Pennells. ⁹

Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea, Freer Gallery of Art

It is a pair with Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea y105, which is similarly framed.

History

Provenance

• By 1886: owned by Charles Benjamin Bright McLaren (1st Lord Aberconway) (1850-1934), later Lord Aberconway, until at least 1911.
• 1950: bought from Paul Mellon (1907-1999), Pittsburgh, by Scott & Fowles, New York dealers;
• 1950: sold by them to the Macbeth Gallery, New York;
• 1950: sold by the Macbeth Gallery to Carolyn Glendenin Foulke (née Ryan) (1910-1987), New York and (in the 1960s) Florida;
• 1987: sold at auction, Sotheby's, New York, 28 May 1987 (lot 3), bought by James Maroney (n/a), New York art dealer;
• 1995: acquired by the musées nationaux de France;
• 1995: Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

It is not known what happened to this painting at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy. It may have been bought about that time by Charles Benjamin Bright McLaren. It was listed by Whistler around 1886 or 1887 as 'Green & Pink - McLaren'. ¹⁰ McLaren still owned it in 1911 when it was reproduced by the Pennells. ¹¹ It may have been sold by him or by his son or grandson, the second and third Baron Aberconways.

According to Robert G. McIntyre of the William Macbeth Galleries it was bought from Paul Mellon, by Scott & Fowles, who sold it to Macbeth's in 1950, and they sold it to Mrs C. R. Foulke in the same year. ¹²

It was acquired by the musées nationaux de France with the support of the concours du Fonds National du Patrimoine, and the participation of Philippe Meyer, in 1995. ¹³

Exhibitions

• 1871: 5th Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil, under the Management of the Committee of the Dudley Gallery, London, 1871 (cat. no. 225) as 'Variations in Violet and Green'.
• 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. 81).

Edward John Poynter (1836-1919) told Whistler that it had been 'properly placed' at the Dudley Gallery in 1871, adding, 'If you think my opinion worth anything, perhaps you will allow me to say how very much I admire both the paintings.' ¹⁴ Walter Greaves (1846-1930) and his brother Henry Greaves (1843-1904) were asked by Whistler to check his exhibits at the Dudley Gallery, and they reported favourably. Whistler replied, 'I am very glad you and Harry have been to the Dudley - and that the two "harmonies" look swell among the crowd.' ¹⁵ A review of the exhibition at the Dudley Gallery appeared in The Times in 1871. Despite an apparently disparaging description of the painting as 'some slightly indicated female personages on a shadowy balcony. The only way to explain the perspective ... is to suppose [the picture was] painted from a high window' - the review was an important assessment of Whistler's aims and achievements:

'They are illustrative of the theory, not confined to this painter, but most conspicuously and ably worked out by him, that painting is so closely akin to music that the colours of the one may and should be used, like the ordered sounds of the other, as means and influences of vague emotion; that painting should not aim at expressing dramatic emotions, depicting incidents of history, or recording facts of nature, but should be content with moulding our moods and stirring our imaginations, by subtle combinations of colour through which all that painting has to say to us can be said, and beyond which painting has no valuable or true speech whatever. … The only way to explain the perspective of the pictures is to suppose them painted from a high window. The colour, consistently with the theory of the painter, is carried out into the frames by means of delicate diaperings and ripplings of faint greens and moony blues on their gold, and the Japanese influence in which the painter delights is carried even to the introduction of the coloured cartouche, which on the Japanese screen bears the address of the painter or seller. Mr. Whistler has introduced his own monogram or symbol in this way, carefully attuning the colour of the cartouche to the dominant harmony of his picture. With all the apparent slightness of the work, the management of colour all through is governed by the subtlest calculation, and the gradation and juxtaposition of delicate tones appeal to the finest chromatic susceptibles.' ¹⁶

However, reviews varied greatly: The Examiner on 28 October praised Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103 and Variations in Violet and Green as 'two experiments in the combination of colour … wonderful things', but on 10 November 1871 the Morning Advertiser described them as 'eccentric productions' and mere 'smudges'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 104), plate 69, as 'Variations in Violet and Green'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 5th Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil, under the Management of the Committee of the Dudley Gallery, London, 1871 (cat. no. 225) as 'Variations in Violet and Green'.
• 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. 81).

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Dudley Gallery', The Examiner, London, 28 October 1871, pp. 11-12.
• Anon., 'Fine Arts. Oil Pictures at the Dudley Gallery', Illustrated London News, London, 28 October 1871.
• Anon., 'Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures', Morning Advertiser, London, 10 November 1871, pp. 2-3.
• Anon., 'Dudley Gallery. - Cabinet Pictures in Oil', The Times, London, 14 November 1871, p. 4.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Fine Arts, Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil,' The Athenaeum, London, 28 October 1871, p. 565.
• Anon., 'The International Society's Whistler Exhibition', The Studio, vol. 34, April 1905, pp. 223-35, repr. p. 225.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907 (cat. no. 430).
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911, frame repr. f.p. 120.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 186-87, 636, 656.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (cat. no. 58).
• Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, pp. 94, 101-02.
• Sutherland, Daniel E., Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake, New Haven and London, 2014, p. 122.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 63.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITIONS:

• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 24).
• Le Japonisme, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1988.
• Dorment, Richard, and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1994-1995 (cat. no. 25).
• Rêve et réalité - Collections du Musée d'Orsay, Kobé and Tokyo, Japan, 1999.
• Art Nouveau 1890-1914, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2000.
• Roger Marx, un critique aux côtés de Gallé, Monet, Rodin, Gauguin, Nancy, France, 2006.
• Monet y la abstraccion, Madrid, 2010.
• Debussy, la musique et les arts, Paris and Tokyo, 2012.
• MacDonald, Margaret, and Patricia de Montfort, An American in London: Whistler and the Thames, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Addison Gallery of American Art, Freer Gallery of Art, 2013-2014 (cat. no. 37).

SALES:

• Sotheby's, New York, 28 May 1987 (lot 3).

Journals 1906-Present

• Lacambre, Geneviève, La Revue du Louvre et des musées de France, Paris, 1995.
• Anon., La Lettre des Musées de France, Paris, 1995.
• Lacambre, Geneviève, La revue du Musée d'Orsay, n°1, Paris, September 1995.

Websites

• Musée d'Orsay website at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 51) 'Variations in violet and green'.

Other

• None.