The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne dates from the early 1870s. It has been dated to about 1871 on the strength of the butterfly signature, but it has been so much repainted that it is difficult to date. ¹

Nocturne, Indianapolis Museum of Art

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard

It is also dated from its relation to other paintings of a similar view, particularly Nocturne in Blue and Silver y113, which has a similar signature and similar foliage in the foreground (though more fluidly painted), although Nocturne y114 appears to show a dome rather than the spire visible in Nocturne in Blue and Silver y113.

Images

Subject

Titles

Possible titles include:

• Possibly 'Nocturne, Battersea' (1921, Pennell). ²
• 'Nocturne' (1935, M. H. de Young Museum, San Francisco). ³
• 'Nocturne' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

'Nocturne' is the preferred title.

Description

Nocturne, Indianapolis Museum of Art

A riverscape in horizontal format. Factories, chimneys and spoil heaps are visible on the distant river bank, and a small boat or lighter on the river, by the near-shore, towards the lower right. A few leaves are seen at the lower right edge.

Site

Nocturne, Indianapolis Museum of Art

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard

Battersea, seen from the Chelsea side of the river Thames. It is a similar view to that seen in Nocturne in Blue and Silver y113, but with variations, the spire being omitted, and a large building with a dome replacing it.

Comments

Walter Greaves (1846-1930) undoubtedly painted comparable views of Battersea Reach Nocturne y114, and it had been considered that this painting could have been by him, but it does appear to be a genuine, if repainted, work by Whistler.

Technique

Technique

Nocturne, Indianapolis Museum of Art

It was painted on a reddish brown ground on very coarse canvas. A conservation report found that the original paint appeared to be a typical 'Whistlerian soup, that is a layer of paint consisting of extremely finely ground pigments applied in a highly liquid state over one and more likely two layers of ground, one of which appears to be pinkish-red.' ⁵ The original paint is now so thin and rubbed down that restoration is virtually impossible.

Conservation History

Nocturne, Indianapolis Museum of Art, photograph, 1980?

A conservation report by the museum found that it had been '98 per cent overpainted.' ⁶ The buildings and their reflections, and the water in the foreground, particularly around the foliage and the butterfly signature, have been clumsily retouched with a greenish paint, which makes it difficult to assess the original appearance.

Frame

18-1/4 x 30-1/4" (canvas) 27-3/4 x 39-7/8 x 3-1/4" (framed).

History

Provenance

• 1878: possibly owned by Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890), London;
• Before 1890: possibly bought from Howell by Alfred Wurhaft (d. ca 1917), a money-lender, London;
• ca 1917: Alfred Wurhaft died in St Petersburg, Russia, and bequeathed the painting to his nephew, Dr Maximilian Wurhaft (b. 1888), Brooklyn, NJ;
• 1920s: sold to J. W. Young (dates unknown), Chicago art dealer;
• 1929: sold to Charles Finn Williams (1934-1952), Cincinnati, OH, in October 1929;
• 1952: bequeathed in September 1952 to his son, James R. Williams (dates unknown);
• 1963: bought by Wunderlich, New York dealers;
• 1963: sold to the Herron Museum Alliance, Indianapolis, in May 1963;
• 1963: given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

According to the Pennells, C. A. Howell bought five paintings from Whistler on 22 February 1878 for £50, including 'a small framed Nocturne, Battersea', which was probably Nocturne y114 or Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y119. ⁷

Most of the early history of Nocturne y114 derives from the sworn testimony of Dr Maximilian Wurhaft of Brooklyn, made on 31 October 1929 in New York. ⁸ According to him, the painting was secured from Whistler by Howell in the 1870s or 1880s and sold to Wurhaft's uncle Alfred, a money-lender, then living in London. After Wurhaft's death in St Petersburg during the Russian revolution, about 1917, his estate was settled through Probate Courts in Oslo, Norway, and the nocturne was inherited by the said Dr Maximilian Wurhaft. He then sold it to J. W. Young in Chicago, who sold it to C. F. Williams in 1929, whose son, J. R. Williams inherited it. ⁹ It was later bought by Wunderlich's, New York, who sold it to the Herron Museum Alliance in May 1963, and it was given by them to the Indianapolis Museum of Art later in the same year.

Exhibitions

• No exhibition in Whistler's lifetime has been identified.

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. 114), plate 71, as 'Nocturne'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, p. 69.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Exhibition of American Painting, M. H. de Young Museum, San Francisco, 1935 (cat. no. 243).
• Exhibition, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1937.
• Loans from the collection of Mr and Mrs Charles F. Williams, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1939.
• Towards Impressionism, Hecksher Museum, Huntingdon, NY, 1963.
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 7).

Journals 1906-Present

• Anon., Advertisement section, Apollo, March 1963, p. xl, repr. p. xl.
• Peat, Wilbur D., [n.t.], Bulletin of the Art Association of Indianapolis, vol. 51, October 1963, pp. 21, 28, repr. on cover.
• Coley, Curtis G., 'Pre-Impressionist Landscape in the Museum Collection', Bulletin of the Art Association of Indianapolis, 51, December 1964, pp. 68-75, at pp. 74-75.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• Alexander, Mary L., 'The Week in Art Circles', The Enquirer, Cincinnati, 29 October 1939.

Websites

• Indianapolis Museum of Art website at http://collection.imamuseum.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 64) 'Nocturne'.

Other

• None.