The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 144
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold
Date
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold probably dates from between 1872 and 1878. 1
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold, photograph, 1960s
Most of Whistler's Nocturnes date from the 1870s, but the early history of this painting is unknown.
Images
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold, photograph
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold, photograph, 1980
Subject
Titles
Wildly varied suggested titles include:
- 'Nocturne – Gris et Or' (1892/1901, label). 2
- Possibly 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold' (1898, Goupil). 3 .
- 'Nocturne' (1899, A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Dublin). 4
- 'Nocturne, Westminster. Grey and Gold' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). 5
- 'Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold' (1980, YMSM). 6
- 'Nocturne' (2018, Mississippi Museum of Art). 7
'Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold' is the preferred title.
Description
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold, photograph, 1960s
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold, photograph, 1960s
A night scene showing a broad river, in horizontal format. The banks of the river recede – slightly to right of centre – into the distance. A few lights, and, at left, the lit clock-faces of a clock-tower, are reflected in the water.
Site
The title given to this painting in 1905 suggests that it was identified as a view of the clock tower of Westminster but the details are not sufficiently clear to confirm this identification.
Technique
Technique
Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold, photograph, 1960s
Thinly painted on a fairly fine weave canvas. Everything is soft edged, only the clockface, dots of lights and their reflections, providing points of focus.
The 1980 catalogue recorded the size as 27.9 x 46.4 cm (11 x 18 1/4") and suggested that since this was close to the French 'toile de 8' it could have been acquired in Paris.
Conservation History
It was lined and cleaned by Ben Johnson, possibly in 1967/1968. The present authors have not seen the painting, but museum photographs suggest it is much darker than it was at that time.
Frame
48.26 x 67.31 x 5.72 cm (19 x 26 ½ x 2 1/3"),
History
Provenance
- By 1899: Alexander Arnold Hannay (1858-1927), London.
- 1920: bought from the Howard Young Galleries, New York, by Bernard B. Jones (dates unknown).
- 1927: possibly with W. B. Paterson, London dealer.
- ca 1940/1950; private collection, USA.
- 1967-1968: Adams, Davidson & Co., Washington, DC;
- By 1980: said to have been acquired by the Elliot L. Jones Trust.
- 1990: bequeathed by Sara Virginia Jones (1920-1990), Tchula, Mississippi, to the Mississippi Museum of Art.
It is not known what happened to this painting at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879: it may be the 'Symphony in grey and gold' sold by Whistler to Lucas (Luke) Alexander Ionides (1837-1924) in 'the early eighties' and sold by him 'some twenty years later' to a dealer for £150 (see Symphony in Grey and Gold y143) 8 Alternatively it could have been the 'little Nocturne' sold by Whistler to Luke Ionides in 1878 and bought back about 1892 (see Nocturne in Grey and Gold y155).
Labels on the verso give the title 'Nocturne – Gris et Or' and Whistler's Paris address, 110 rue du Bac, suggesting it was in Paris some time between 1892 and 1899. By 1899 it was owned by A. A. Hannay who lent it to an exhibition in Dublin. There are considerable gaps in the provenance thereafter. According to the records of the Howard Young Gallery, New York, it was bought from them by Bernard B. Jones in 1920. 9 A note, made by someone unknown, suggests that it was with W. B. Paterson, a London art dealer, in 1927. Joseph Whistler Revillon (1886-1955), probably writing in the 1940s, recorded it as in a private American collection. 10 It was with Adams, Davidson & Co., Washington, DC, in 1967, and acquired by the Elliot L. Jones Trust. The Adams Davidson Galleries was established in 1965 and closed in 2014; their records are in the Archives of American Art.
Exhibitions
- 1898: Possibly A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 25) as 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold'.
- 1899: A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 80) as 'Nocturne'.
- 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905. (cat. no. 74) as 'Nocturne, Westminster. Grey and Gold'.
It may have been the painting shown in A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 25) as 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold' (but this could have been Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151). The description in the Bristol Times, 5 March 1898, does tally reasonably well with Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold:
'The gold ... is found in the garish lights that are reflected in the waters of a broad river stretching miles to the horizon, of which the distance has been gained by the judicious use of a dark grey set, as it were, diagonally across a slate-blue background. A streak of red suggests the port light of a steamer; the grey is the dividing line between the blue of the river and the blue of the open sky'.
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. 144), plate 85, as 'Nocturne: Westminster – Grey and Gold'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- Possibly A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 25) as 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold'.
- A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 80) as 'Nocturne'.
- Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905. (cat. no. 74) as 'Nocturne, Westminster. Grey and Gold'.
Newspapers 1855-1905
- Anon., Bristol Times, Bristol, 5 March 1898, quoted in exh. cat., London, Goupil, 1898 (2nd edition) p. ii.
- Anon., 'The Goupil Gallery', Pall Mall Gazette, London, 8 March 1898, p. 4.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
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. 217).
- Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (cat. no. 49).
Books, General
- None.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- Addams, Davidson Galleries Inc., Washington, DC, 1967, p. 19.
Journals 1906-Present
- Connoisseur, 1967, vol. 166, advertisment, repr. p. ixx.
- Ionides, Luke, 'Memories: Whistler in the Quartier Latin', Transatlantic Review, vol. 1, January 1924, pp. 37-52, at p. 51.
Unpublished
- Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 77) 'Nocturne, Westminster: Grey and gold'.
Other
- None.
Notes:
1: Dated 'about 1870/5' in YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 144).
2: Label on the verso, 'Nocturne - Gris et Or / 17022 / McNeill Whistler / Paris / 110 Rue de Bac'.
3: A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 25).
4: A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 80).
5: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 74).
6: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 144).
7: Website at http://collection.msmuseumart.org.
8: Ionides 1924 [more], at p. 51.
9: Howard Young inventory no. 3299, mentioned in letter from Marianne Fairbank, Adams, Davidson Galleries, to A. McL. Young, 18 April 1972, GUL WPP files.
10: Revillon, Draft Catalogue [more] (cat. no. 78).