The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne in Blue and Silver dates from between 1875 and 1878. ¹

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Yale Center for British Art

The technique suggests a date in the late 1870s and it may well have been the 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' exhibited in the II Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1878 (cat. no. 53).

Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151 was probably painted shortly after Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge y140, and the butterfly signature, of the type first used by Whistler about 1883/1884, must have been added later, possibly at the time of the Paris exhibition in 1883.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• Possibly 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' (1878, Grosvenor). ²
• Possibly 'Nocturne en bleu et argent' (1883, Petit). ³
• Possibly 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold' (1898, Goupil). ⁴
• 'Arrangement in Grey and Gold, Nocturne, Battersea Bridge' (1905, ISSPG). ⁵
• 'Nocturne, Battersea (Arrangement in Grey and Gold)' (1908, Pennell). ⁶
• 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

Description

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Yale Center for British Art

A night scene, in horizontal format, showing the view across a broad river, with a small boat at lower right. The buildings dimly seen across the river include a church tower at left, and factory chimneys and a spoil heap to its right. The river recedes into the distance at right.

Site

The title given to this painting for its exhibition in 1905 is misleading because Battersea Bridge is not shown.

The site is the River Thames in London. Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151 and Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y152 appear to represent the same view. It is basically a view of Battersea Reach from Chelsea similar to Grey and Silver: Chelsea Wharf y054, Nocturne in Blue and Silver y113, Nocturne y114, Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y119, and Nocturne: Battersea y120. The clock tower appears like that in Nocturne: Westminster - Grey and Gold y144 and Nocturne: Grey and Silver y156. Anna Robins comments on the precision with which Whistler represented the silhouette of the Morgan Crucible Company. ⁸

Technique

Technique

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Yale Center for British Art

It is very thinly painted. The clock tower was originally a little higher. The colours are richly dark. The smooth, partly rubbed down surface and blurring of outlines is extremely effective.

Marc Simpson discusses the development of Whistler's technique when painting these Nocturnes, from the skilful, flowing, and very visible brushstrokes of, for instance, Nocturne in Blue and Silver y113, to the soft, smooth, blurred paint surfaces 'like breath on glass' in the Nocturne in Blue and Silver here discussed. ⁹ In addition, Joyce Hill Stoner discusses Whistler's preference for absorbent grounds at this period, citing this painting: 'Absorbent grounds enhance penetration of the oil paint films into the grounds, increase overall mattness, and thereby emphasize the low-relief surfaces of prominent canvas weave.' ¹⁰

Conservation History

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, silver gelatin print, 1895/1905, GUL Whistler PH4/17

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, photograph, 1980

Unknown. Earlier photographs suggest it may have darkened slightly but it looks in very good condition.

Frame

It is possibly the painting framed in 1878 (probably for the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition) by Henry John Murcott (1835-1910), picture framer, carver and gilder. Whistler sent Murcott detailed instructions on 4 February 1878:

'I want you to make me at once another frame like the last two -

also a stretcher - The stretcher to measure 2. ft ½ inch or 24½ inches by 1." 5½ inches or 17½ in

The frame will be made to fit the stretcher - So that the sight measurement would be about twenty four inches and by seventeen inches - Please remember this time that second moulding you missed before - also let the inside flats be of the same oak as the rest of the frame - (and not stucco preparation) also let there be a glass - and have the pale green gold - and especially let me have the frame stretcher here at once.' ¹¹

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, framed, 2016

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, verso of frame

The Grau-style frame now on the painting, shown above, dates from much later. It might possibly have been added by Goupil's in 1898. The museum gives the measurements as 69.2 x 84.8 x 6.7 cm (27 1/4 x 33 3/8 x 2 5/8").

History

Provenance

• By 1905: Elizabeth H. Flower (1842-1920), the widow of Wickham Flower (1835-1904);
• 1908/1911: presented by her to the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon;
• 1911: sold by them to Agnew, London dealers;
• 1911: sold by Agnew's to Knoedler, New York dealers, in June 1911;
• 1912: bought from them by Gertrude Buckingham Whittemore (1874-1941), Naugatuck, CT, and passed to the J. H. Whittemore Company;
• 1941: after her death, the painting remained in the Whittemore family;
• 1994: acquired for the Yale Center for British Art with the Paul Mellon Fund.

It is not known what happened to this nocturne at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy. It is possible that it was bought by Wickham Flower (1835-1904), and bequeathed to his wife in 1904: she certainly owned it by the following year, when she lent it to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London, and was listed as the owner by Bernhard Sickert (1862-1932) in 1908. ¹²

It was recorded as bought on 17 January 1912 by the Whittemores from Knoedler's. ¹³

Exhibitions

• 1878: Possibly II Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1878 (cat. no. 53) as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver'.
• 1883: Possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 1883 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.
• 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'
• 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. 38) as 'Arrangement in Grey and Gold, Nocturne, Battersea Bridge'.

The early exhibition history is uncertain.

1878: However, it is possible that it was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878 when 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' was described in a review of the exhibition, by the art critic of the Times, as 'the Thames in a mist, as we infer from what looks like a clock tower gleaming through the haze.' ¹⁴ A foggier description appeared in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 14 May 1878: 'a river in as fog, with yellow streaks here and there for lights.'

In 1878 the Sheffield Independent commented on Whistler's 'half-dozen pictures like plates of smoked glass.' ¹⁵ All three Nocturnes (Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151, Nocturne in Blue and Gold y154, and Nocturne: Grey and Gold - Chelsea Snow y174) were also discussed in the Magazine of Art:

'Three of the small canvases are clever renderings of various effects of London fog, works full of intelligence, and quite subtly adroit in some passages, as in the value of the floating bank of smoke in one of the "Nocturnes" '. ¹⁶

1883: The nocturne under discussion may also have been shown in Paris when 'Nocturne en bleu et argent' was described by Alfred Lostalot as a 'marine au clair de la lune' and in another somewhat naive review as 'Là-bas une ville ou village, où trois peupliers et un clocher se dressent en obélisques sur le ciel très sobrement donné; en revanche, une mer, ou un lac immense.' ¹⁷

1898: It is less likely that it was the 'Nocturne – Blue and Gold' shown at Goupil's in 1898 (but see Nocturne: Westminster - Grey and Gold y144).

1905: The first definite showing was in 1905, when it was lent by Mrs Flower, the widow of Wickham Flower, to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in London.

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. 151), plate 150, as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Probably II Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1878 (cat. no. 53) as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver'.
• Blackburn, Henry, Grosvenor Notes, London, 1878, p. 20.
• Possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 1883 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.
• 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'
• 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. 38) as 'Arrangement in Grey and Gold, Nocturne, Battersea Bridge' [sic].

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery,' The Times, London, 2 May 1878, p. 7.
• Anon., 'Grosvenor Gallery', Sheffield Independent, Sheffield, 2 May 1878, p. 5.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery,' Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Leeds, 14 May 1878, p. 6.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon, 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Magazine of Art, 1878, p. 51.
• 'Facetiae [The Newest Thing in Wall-Paper]', London Reader: Of Literature, Science, Art and General Information, vol. 32, January 1879, p. 238.
• Lostalot, Alfred de, 'Exposition internationale de peinture. Galerie Georges Petit', Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 28, July 1883, pp. 77-80 , at p. 80.
• Twycross, Honora, 'Japanese Pictures', English Illustrated Magazine, vol. 18, September 1904, p. 529.

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.
• Glazer, Lee, Emily Jacobsen, Blyth McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor. Lovely Little Games, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2019, p. 40, repr. p. 41.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, repr. f.p. 162.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911, pp. 161-67.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, pp. 11, 136.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 159 (cat. no. 67) as 'Nocturne in Grey and Gold, Battersea Bridge'.

Books, General

• Bindman, David, The History of British art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 85 (v.3), fig. 55.
• Marciari-Alexander, Julia, This other Eden, paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 164 (cat. no. 67).
• Prettejohn, Elizabeth, Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 176-79.
• Smith, Ann Y., Hidden in Plain Sight: The Whittemore Collection and the French Impressionists, Garnet Hill Publishing Co. and Mattatuck Historical Society, 2009, pp. 62-63, 73, 93, repr. p. 63.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Special Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Prints and Drawings from New England Collections, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1939, as 'Thames Nocturne' lent by the J. H. Whittemore Company.
• 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, p. 128 (cat. no. 52).
• The Grosvenor Gallery, a palace of art in Victorian England, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1996, pp. 97, 199 (cat. no. 68), fig. 53, pl. 32.
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 4, 110-11 (cat. no. 6).
• Lochnan, Katharine, 'Turner, Whistler, Monet: an artistic dialogue', pp. 15-35, repr, p. 19, in Lochnan, Katharine A. (ed.), Turner, Whistler, Monet, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2004; Grand Palais, Paris, 2004-2005; Tate Britain, London, 2005 (cat. no. 48).
• Barringer, Timothy J., Art and music in Britain, four encounters, 1730-1900, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2006, pp. 30-31, 34.
• Stoner, Joyce Hill, 'Materials for Immateriality', in Simpson, Marc, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 2008, pp. 91-109, at pp. 95-96, pl. 1, raking light image repr. p. 95, fig. 37.
• 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, pp. 128, 174 (cat. no. 65).
• 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 (cat. no. 124).
• Whistler in Paris, London and Venice, Yale University Art Gallery, 2015.
• Lochnan, Katharine, Roald Nasgaard and Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, (eds.), Mystical Landscapes From Vincent van Gogh to Emily Carr, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2016; Munich 2017, p. 174-75.

Journals 1906-Present

• Anon., 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver: Lagoon in Venice', ART News, vol. 44, 1 November 1945, p. 21, repr.
• Anon., 'Lagoon, Venice : Nocturne in Blue and Silver', ArtsCanada, vol. 28, October 1971, p. 18, repr.
• Anon., 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver, no. 1', Art Quarterly, vol. 10, 1947, p. 11.
• Alper, M. V., 'American Mythologies in Painting', Arts Magazine, vol. 46, Summer 1972, p. 50.
• Pilgrim, Dianne Hauserman, 'Revival of Pastels in Nineteenth Century America: The Society of Painters in Pastel', American Art Journal, vol. 10, November 1978, pp. 43-62.
• Hobbs, Susan, 'Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.', Magazine Antiques, vol. 120, November 1981, pp. 1194-202.
• Holden, Donald, 'James McNeill Whistler: Master of Limited Color', American Artist, vol. 37, April 1973, pp. 38-43.
• Ingram, Terry, 'A Win for Yale', ART News, February 1995, p. 33.
• Neve, Christopher, 'View of the River: James McNeill Whistler in London', Country Life, vol. 148, 10 December 1970, pp. 1122-23.
• Slifkin, Robert, 'James Whistler as the invisible man, anti-aestheticism and artistic vision', Oxford Art Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, March, 2006, p. 58, fig. 3.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• McDonald, John, 'A Feast of Mellon', Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May 1998, p. 14.

Websites

• Yale Center for British Art website at http://collections.britishart.yale.edu.
• Hill, Marian, frame manufacturers, picture restorers and repairers and mounters of drawings, 10 January 2015, attached to Henry John Murcott, http://mv.ancestry.co.uk (acc. 2016).

Other

• None.