The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens probably dates from between 1875 and 1876. ¹

On 18 September 1875 Whistler's mother mentioned that he had been painting 'Moonlight pictures ... one lately finished of Cremorne Gardens at Chelsea.' ²

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

On 10 April 1876 the New York Herald mentioned among Whistler's current work, 'a dim nocturne, Cremorne Gardens, seen by starlight and the fitful gleam of fireworks', which may have been this painting. ³

Letters to the art dealer David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) in 1892 suggest that Whistler wanted a Cremorne Nocturne, possibly this, cleaned by Stephen Richards (1844-1900) and sent to his Paris studio so that he could paint on it, but it is not known if he did so. ⁴

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• Probably 'Nocturne - [Cremorne] Dancing' (1886/1887, Whistler). ⁵
• Nocturne in Green & Gold' (1880s, possibly Whistler) ⁶
• 'Nocturne in Green and Gold, The Falling Rocket' (1905, ISSPG). ⁷
• 'Cremorne (Nocturne in Green and Gold)' (1908, Pennell). ⁸
• 'Nocturne in Green and Gold: Cremorne Gardens, London, at Night No. 4' (1966, Sutton). ⁹
• 'Nocturne in Green and Gold, Cremorne Gardens, London at Night' (1974, New York Cultural Center et al.). ¹⁰
• 'Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens' (1980, YMSM).
• 'Nocturne in Green and Gold' (2018, Metropolitan Museum of Art). ¹¹

Pennell's title originated with the 1905 exhibition catalogue, which stated that an inscription on the back in Whistler's writing read 'Nocturne in Green and Gold' and that the picture was exhibited at the Whistler-Ruskin trial in 1878. B. Sickert pointed out that this was inaccurate, but as is clear from the titles listed above, this title persisted, with variations. ¹² The preferred title is 'Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens'.

Description

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

A very dark landscape, in horizontal format, with figures wandering across the gardens. At left there are figures dancing on a platform, at right, the corner of a two-storey building, described by E. L. Cary in 1907 as an 'illuminated kiosk … waiters in red coats are here and there in the foreground'. ¹³

Site

This is one of six nocturnal paintings of the pleasure gardens, Cremorne Gardens in Chelsea, London.

Cremorne pleasure gardens closed to the public in 1877. Whistler's paintings of Cremorne include Cremorne, No. 1 y163, Cremorne Gardens, No. 2 y164, Nocturne: Cremorne Gardens, No. 3 y165, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens y166, Nocturne: Black and Gold - The Fire Wheel y169, and Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket y170.

Technique

Technique

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

It is thinly painted, with a few highlights of thicker paint for the fireworks. Sutton calls the painting 'revolutionary by reason of its almost complete denial of colouristic possibilities and the reduction of light to a bare minimum', and describes the brushstrokes that suggest the figures 'summary dashes of pigment.' ¹⁴

Conservation History

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens, photograph, 1980

In 1892 Whistler sent instructions to David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) of the Goupil Gallery to send one of his Cremorne Nocturnes – possibly Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens y166 – to the picture restorer Stephen Richards (1844-1900) in London, and then to him in Paris, for treatment:

'Nocturne - Cremorne. The large one that was sent down to Bond Street but not exhibited - I should like Richards to take all the varnish off - with great care and tenderness at once - and then leaving it unvarnished, (for me to paint upon) send it ...to Joyant here, who will deliver them to me.' ¹⁵

He wrote again on 6 June 1892:

'You remember also that I told you to let Richards wash the large Cremorne Nocturne (that was brought to the Gallery but not exhibited) and take off any varnish, if he found any - and then send it to me without revarnishing so that I might paint upon it.' ¹⁶

When Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1906 it was already badly cracked. ¹⁷ It has darkened over the years through irreversible chemical processes. The colours have now virtually disappeared, a loss attributed, by Roger Elliot Fry (1866-1934) in 1909, to Whistler's use of bitumen. ¹⁸

In 1983 the museum conservator noted that there were drying cracks and burns that could have resulted from the lining of the canvas, and that the natural darkening of the paint had probably been augmented by chemicals used in earlier restorations. ¹⁹

Frame

A Grau Whistler frame, which was originally signed by Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892), but this signature has been rubbed out. The label of Thomas Agnew & Sons on the verso confirms that this frame was on the painting when it was sold in 1902.

History

Provenance

• 1886/1892: acquired by Charles Benjamin Bright McLaren (1st Lord Aberconway) (1850-1934).
• By 1902: Théodore Duret (1838-1927), Paris;
• 1902: sold through Agnew's to Magda Stuart Sindici (Mrs W. Heinemann) (b. 1878, m. 1899), in May 1902;
• 1903: sold to Edmund Davis (1861-1939), London, in November 1903, and repurchased in February 1904;
• 1905: sold by Mrs Heinemann through Agnew's, London art dealers, to Winaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac (1865-1943), in February 1905;
• 1906: bought through P. Mathey, Paris, by Walter Gay (1856-1937), Paris;
• 1906: sold by Gay to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of Harris Charles Fahnestock (1835-1914)).

It was probably the 'Nocturne - [Cremorne] Dancing', listed by Whistler in 1886 or 1887 as owned by 'McLaren'; it is not certain when he sold it, nor when Duret bought it. ²⁰ According to Agnew, the art dealer, 'I had the picture from Monsieur Duret with the advice of Whistler himself, who always looked on this Nocturne as one of his finest works.' ²¹ It was bought by Mrs William Heinemann (wife of the publisher) in May 1902; she sold it to Edmund Davis in November 1903, repurchased it in February of the following year, and sold it – again through Agnew's – to the Princesse Edmond de Polignac in February 1905. ²² Within a year it was sold again, this time through P. Mathey to Walter Gay (1856-1937), and by Gay to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In recommending it, Gay wrote that he thought the picture 'a little black, but that is the fault of a good many Whistlers, but they are so hard to find, and so few of them of any importance.' ²³ Presumably he meant that some paintings still in private hands were not 'of any importance'!

Exhibitions

• 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. 62) as 'Nocturne in Green and Gold, The Falling Rocket' lent by W. Heinemann.

Whistler mentioned 'Nocturne - Cremorne' to D. C. Thomson in May 1892, describing it as 'The large one that was sent down to Bond Street but not exhibited', meaning that it was not included in his retrospective exhibition, Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892. ²⁴

It is not certain that this refers to Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens y166, which was the second largest of the known Cremorne paintings, but it is known that it had conservation issues, and the same letter asks Thomson to send it to his picture restorer.

The largest of the Cremorne Nocturnes was Cremorne Gardens, No. 2 y164, but Whistler did not know where it was at this time, and it was not the biggest in terms of height, but in width and area. Next in size were Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens y166, Nocturne: Black and Gold - The Fire Wheel y169 (which was in the Goupil 1892 show), Cremorne, No. 1 y163, Nocturne: Cremorne Gardens, No. 3 y165, and (the smallest but most famous) Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket y170. ²⁵

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. 166), plate 92, as 'Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Gardens'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 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. 62) as 'Nocturne in Green and Gold, The Falling Rocket'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• 'American Artists in London, What they have done for Philadelphia', New York Herald, New York, 10 April 1876, p. 5. Press cutting in GUL Whistler PC 2, p. 2.

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, pp. 62-62, 218 (cat. no. 413).
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, New York, 2004, p. 186.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, repr. f.p. 164 as 'Cremorne (Nocturne in Green and Gold)'.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, pp. 146-47 (cat. no. 54).
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 67.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, p. 24.

Books, General

• Sutton, Denys (ed.), The Letters of Roger Fry, 2 vols., London, 1972, pp. 310, 312.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Avery, Kevin J. , American Drawings and Watercolors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vol. 1, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1835, New York, 2002, p. 364.
• Spassky, Natalie, with Linda Bantel, Doreen Bolger Burke, Meg Perlman, and Amy L. Walsh, American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 2, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born between 1816 and 1845 , New York, 1985, pp. 370-73 as 'Nocturne in Green and Gold.'.

EXHIBITION:

• European Influences on American Painting of the 19th Century, Heckscher Art Museum, Huntington, Long Island, 1947 (cat. no. 7) as 'Nocturne in Green and Gold, The Falling Rocket'.
• Grand Reserves, New York Cultural Center in association with Fairleigh Dickinson University, New York, 1974 (cat. no. 71) as 'Nocturne in Green and Gold, Cremorne Gardens, London at Night'.
• Schwartz, M. D., 'The New Vision,' American Styles of 1876-1910, Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, and Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, 1976 (unnumbered) as 'Nocturne in Green and Gold (Cremorne Gardens, London at Night)'.
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 218, 247, repr. fig. 112 (not exhibited).
• 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, p. 186 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• Anon., ‘Principal Accessions’, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1, June 1906, p. 105.
• Cary, E. L., Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1, July 1906, p. 109.

Websites

• Metropolitan Museum website at https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 88) 'Nocturne in green and gold: Cremorne Gardens, at night / Nocturne in black and gold: The Gradens / Nocturne, Cremorne Gardens, No: 4 / Nocturne, Cremorne Gardens.'

Other

• Siewert, John, 'Whistler’s Nocturnes and the Aesthetic Subject', PhD thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994, p. 13.