The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

YMSM 151
Nocturne in Blue and Silver

Nocturne in Blue and Silver

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1875/1878
Collection: Yale Center for British Art
Accession Number: B1994.19
Medium: oil
Support: canvas
Size: 44.4 x 61.0 cm (17 1/2 x 24")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: Grau-stye, 1898

Date

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

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Yale Center for British Art
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

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Yale Center for British Art
Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Yale Center for British Art

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

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, photograph, 1980
Nocturne in Blue and Silver, photograph, 1980

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, framed, 2016
Nocturne in Blue and Silver, framed, 2016

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, verso of frame
Nocturne in Blue and Silver, verso of frame

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

Description

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Yale Center for British Art
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
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, silver gelatin print, 1895/1905, GUL Whistler PH4/17

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, photograph, 1980
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, framed, 2016

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, verso of frame
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

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

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

Authored by Whistler

Catalogues 1855-1905

Newspapers 1855-1905

Journals 1855-1905

Monographs

Books on Whistler

Books, General

Catalogues 1906-Present

Journals 1906-Present

Newspapers 1906-Present

Websites

Other


Notes:

1: Dated 'about 1872/8' in YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 151).

2: II Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1878 (cat. no. 53).

3: Exposition Internationale de Peinture, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 1883 (cat. no. 5).

4: A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 25).

5: 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).

6: Pennell 1908 [more], vol. 1, repr. f.p. 162.

7: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 151).

8: Robins 2007 [more], p. 11.

9: Simpson, Marc, 'Painting Softly-An Introduction', 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. 2-23, at pp. 4, 8-9, repr. p. 6.

10: Stoner, Joyce Hill, 'Materials for Immateriality', in Simpson 2008, ibid., pp. 91-109, at pp. 95-96, pl. 1, raking light image repr. p. 95, fig. 37.

11: GUW #04234.

12: B. Sickert 1908 A [more] (cat. no. 67).

13: Smith, Ann Y., Hidden in Plain Sight: The Whittemore Collection and the French Impressionists, Garnet Hill Publishing Co. and Mattatuck Historical Society, 2009, p. 93.

14: 'The Grosvenor Gallery,' The Times, London, 2 May 1878, p. 7.

15: 'Grosvenor Gallery', Sheffield Independent, 2 May 1878.

16: Anon, 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Magazine of Art, 1878, p. 51.

17: Lostalot 1883 [more], at p. 80. Unidentified press cutting in GUL Whistler PC 7, p. 15. See also Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103.