The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach probably dates from between 1875 and 1878. ¹

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

It is dated from the technique and its resemblance, in details such as the clocktower and small boat, to other paintings. The colour in Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151 and Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y152 is similar. The extremely shadowy scene points towards the later 1870s but the painting has been reworked and restored so that it is difficult to date.

Images

Subject

Titles

Suggested titles include:

• Possibly ' "Nocturne". Battersea Reach' (1892, Goupil). ²
• Possibly 'Nocturne Blue & Silver' (1894, Whistler). ³
• Possibly 'Battersea Reach' (1894, Pearce). ⁴
• 'Nocturne: Blue & Silver - Battersea Reach' (1895, Whistler). ⁵
• 'Symphony in Blue' (1898, Copley Society, Boston). ⁶
• 'Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

The preferred title is 'Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach'.

Description

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

A dark and misty scene, looking across a broad river to distant buildings and a clock tower on the far bank. A small boat with figures in it is seen at lower left. The canvas is in horizontal format.

Site

Battersea Reach on the river Thames, London. The buildings seen across the river appear to be the same as in Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151.

Technique

Technique

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The canvas is fairly fine weave. The paint is very thin, smoothed into carefully graduated tones without sharp lines and edges: only the precisely painted dots of light create points of focus. The Gardner Museum describes the technique as follows:

'He brushed thinned pigment across the canvas in bold, sweeping strokes, modulating the tone of the blue only slightly to create the subtle gradations that separate river, shore, and sky. Specks of orange and yellow mark the position of boats on the water, lights on the shore, and a clock tower in the distance.' ⁸

Conservation History

The butterfly signature, which has been partly cleaned off, was probably added by Whistler at the time of the 1895 sale (see Harmony in Blue and Silver: Trouville y064).

The present appearance of the nocturne may also have changed. The colour in Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151 and Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y152 is similar, but Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y152 is less effective, since the streaks of reflections are painted rather crudely and the figures in the boat, very loosely.

Frame

• 1870s: the style and whereabouts of the original frame are unknown.
• 1892: it was framed for the Goupil exhibition by Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892), but the painting was returned afterwards to its pre-Goupil frame.
• ca 1894: Grau-style, possibly American: it could have been made by an American framer hired by E. G. Kennedy, following Grau’s pattern. Size 76.2 x 99.06 cm (30 x 39").

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

History

Provenance

• 1895: sold by the artist to Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924), Boston;
• 1924: bequeathed to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

It is not known what happened to it at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879, if indeed it was still in Whistler's possession at that time, which is not certain.

It may have been the 'Nocturne in Grey & Silver' sold to Alfred Chapman (1839-1917), Liverpool, in 1874, and exhibited at Goupil's in 1892 (cat. no. 25) as ' "Nocturne". Battersea Reach'. ⁹ Whistler was able to buy back a 'Nocturne Blue & Silver' – possibly this painting , and possibly in 1892 – with the help of David Croal Thomson (1855-1930).. ¹⁰

This may have been the painting described by Whistler to the New York art dealer Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932), later in 1892, as 'The Little Battersea Reach': 'I hope the pictures - yours I mean - are all looking their best - ... They were very little seen in my studio - only to one or two painters - and mind you The Little Battersea reach was much extolled by the Frenchmen.' ¹¹ If so it may have been the 'unsigned Chelsea picture' (Chelsea being opposite Battersea) about which Whistler was to write a letter to assist Kennedy in selling it when he returned to New York. ¹²

Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y152 is almost certainly the painting referred to by Whistler in a letter from Paris to E. G. Kennedy on 4 February 1894:

'The Nocturne "Blue & Silver Battersea" that you speak of I ought to have £800 for - However if you have a client or mean business in any way and will send me a cheque for £600, I will send you the picture - for you can keep it better than I can - These Whistlers you know are getting scarce now - I have only that one and the "Fire Wheel, Black & Gold" left - The fire wheel you know I want £1000 guineas for.' ¹³

On 9 February 1894, Whistler added: 'In a little while it will be £800 - and then £1000'. ¹⁴ He also tried to sell the Nocturne (this time he called it 'Nocturne Blue & Silver') to D. C. Thomson of Goupil's in London, and also to Alexander Reid (1854-1928) in Glasgow. ¹⁵ It was may also have been exhibited in Antwerp in 1894; on 13 July 1894 Whistler asked if Kennedy wanted him to send 'the Little Chelsea Blue & Silver Nocturne' to America after the exhibition in Antwerp. ¹⁶ Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach is 'small' in that it is the smallest of his Battersea paintings.

However, after all this negotiating, 'Nocturne: Blue & Silver – Battersea Reach' was sold by Whistler to Mrs Gardner in Paris on 25 June 1895 for 600 guineas. ¹⁷ 'Mrs Jack' he told Kennedy triumphantly, 'carried off the last blue Nocturne.' ¹⁸ And despite temporary delays caused by the Customs in New York, 'Blue & Silver – Battersea Reach' was eventually delivered to Mrs Gardner. ¹⁹

Exhibitions

• 1892: Possibly Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 25) as ‘ “Nocturne”. Battersea Reach' (see Nocturne: Battersea Reach y160):
• 1894: Possibly Große Kunst-Ausstellung des Kunst-Vereins in der Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, 1894.
• 1894: Possibly Exposition Universelle des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp, 1894 as 'Battersea Reach'.
• 1898: Loan Exhibition of Pictures by Modern Painters, Copley Society, Boston, 1898 (91) as 'Symphony in Blue'.
• 1899: Exhibition, Mrs. John L. Gardner, 152 Beacon St., Boston (cat. no. 9).

It is not certain that this was the painting shown at Goupil's in 1892: (see Nocturne: Battersea Reach y160).

In a list of paintings to be exhibited in Antwerp in 1894, Whistler listed it as 'Nocturne Blue & Silver, Battersea Reach' and he queried whether it was exhibited in the Große Kunst-Ausstellung des Kunst-Vereins in der Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, 1894. ²⁰

Paintings for exhibition in Antwerp, private collection

It appears on the right of Whistler's panel in a tiny pen sketch, Paintings for exhibition in Antwerp m1427. ²¹ However, the order of hanging had to be changed and was, according to Charles Sprague Pearce (1851-1914) 'Valparaiso / Miss Corder / Fireworks / Battersea reach / Sarasate / Little Girl in White'. ²²

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. 152), plate 86, as 'Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

COLLECTION:

• Catalogue, Fenway Court, Boston, 1903, p. 2, as 'Symphony in Blue'.

EXHIBITION:

• 1892: Possibly Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 25) as ‘ “Nocturne”. Battersea Reach'.
• 1894: Possibly Große Kunst-Ausstellung des Kunst-Vereins in der Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, 1894.
• 1894: Possibly Exposition Universelle des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp, 1894 as 'Battersea Reach'.
• 1898: Loan Exhibition of Pictures by Modern Painters, Copley Society, Boston, 1898 (cat. no. 91) as 'Symphony in Blue'.
• 1899: Exhibition, Mrs. John L. Gardner, 152 Beacon St., Boston (cat. no. 9).

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Chaleyssin, Patrick, James McNeill Whistler: The Strident Cry of the Butterfly, Bournemouth, 1995, p. 40.
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 86-87.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 66.

Books, General

• Carter, Morris, Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court, Boston and New York, 1925, p. 153.
• Chong, Alan, et al. (eds), Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 2003, p. 200.
• Preston, Stuart, 'Nocturne, Blue and Silver: Battersea Reach', in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.), The Gardner Collection, New York, 1946, p. 54.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Goldfarb, Hilliard T., The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A Companion Guide and History, Boston, 1995, p. 27 (which mistakenly dates it '1890s').
• Hendy, Philip. Catalogue of the Exhibited Paintings and Drawings, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 1931, pp. 417-18, repr. p. 417.
• Longstreet, Gilbert Wendel and Morris Carter, General Catalogue, Boston, 1935, p. 17.
• Hendy, Philip, European and American Paintings, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 1974, pp. 291-92.

EXHIBITION:

• Simpson, Marc, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 2008, p. 114.
• After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and The Detroit Institute of Arts, 2004, p. 108 (cat. no. 5).
• Foster, Carter E. (ed.), Edward Hopper, Palazzo Reale di Milano, Fondazione Roma, Fondation de l'Hermitage, 2010, p. 65 (cat. no. 25).

Journals 1906-Present

• Guth, Christine M. E., 'Multisensorial Asia' in Alan Chong and Noriko Murai (eds.), Inventing Asia: American Perspectives Around 1900, Fenway Court, vol. 33, Boston, 2014, p. 96.

Websites

• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website at http://www.gardnermuseum.org.

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• Siewert, John, 'Whistler’s Nocturnes and the Aesthetic Subject', PhD thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994.