The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow dates from 1876. ¹

Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow, Fogg Art Museum

It was described in the Academy on 19 February 1876 as 'lately completed'. ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Nocturne in Grey and Gold' (1878, Grosvenor). ³
• 'Nocturne - Grey & gold Snow' (1886/1887, Whistler). ⁴
• 'Nachtstück in Grau und Gold' (1888, III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Munich). ⁵
• 'Nocturne Grey & Gold – snow piece' (1892, Whistler). ⁶
• 'Nocturne, Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow' (1892, Goupil). ⁷
• 'Snow Nocturne' (1892, Whistler). ⁸
• 'Nocturne gris et or: – la neige à Chelsea' (1892, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts). ⁹
• 'Yellow and Grey – Chelsea Snow' (1894, A. A. Pope). ¹⁰
• 'Chelsea, Nocturne, Gold and Grey' (1901, Royal Scottish Academy). ¹¹
• 'Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow' (1980, YMSM). ¹²

'Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow' is the preferred title.

This painting was chosen by Whistler to illustrate his aesthetic theories, as published in the World on 22 May 1878, under the title 'The Red Rag':

'Why should not I call my works "symphonies," "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes"? I know that many good people think my nomenclature funny and myself "eccentric." ...

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

My picture of a "Harmony in Grey and Gold" is an illustration of my meaning – a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture. Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp.

They say, "Why, not call it 'Trotty Veck' , and sell it for a round harmony of golden guineas?" – naively acknowledging that, without baptism, there is no . . . market! ... I should hold it a vulgar and meretricious trick to excite people about Trotty Veck when, if they really could care for pictorial art at all, they would know that the picture should have its own merit, and not depend upon dramatic, or legendary, or local interest. As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour.' ¹³

Description

Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow, Fogg Art Museum

A snowy street by night, painted in horizontal format. The snowy street stretches into the distance at right, bounded by dark buildings on each side. In the middle distance at left is a dark figure, and behind this, the ground-floor windows of a shop or pub jutting out into the street (Whistler called it 'a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern'). ¹⁴ A few street and house lights cast very little light.

Site

Chelsea, London.

Technique

Technique

Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow, Fogg Art Museum

The canvas, of medium-coarse weave, is roughly equivalent to the French 'toile de 12' (46 x 61cm) in size. It was painted with long strokes of a wide brush, the paint rather thick, except for the thin paint dripping over the solitary figure. This figure was added in black after the background had dried.

Conservation History

n/a

Frame

Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow, Fogg Art Museum

1878: the style and whereabouts of the original frame (s) are unknown.

1892: reframed by Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892) for Whistler's Goupil exhibition of 1892.

ca 1930: reframed by M. Grieve, Flat Whistler style.

History

Provenance

• 1878: bought by Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890), London.
• 1878: sold to Alfred Chapman (1839-1917), Liverpool;
• 1894/1898: bought back by Whistler;
• 1898: sold to John James Cowan (1846-1936), Edinburgh.
• 1921: bequeathed by Antonie, Mrs L. E. Amsinck (d. 1921), widow of Ludwig Edwin Amsinck (d. 1897), to the Kunsthalle, Hamburg;
• after 1922: sold by the Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
• 1926-1928: Galerie G. Paffrath, Dusseldorf;
• 1929: Barbizon House, London art dealers;
• 1930: Macbeth Gallery, New York;
• 1930: Knoedler Galleries, New York.
• 1933: sold by Scott & Fowles, New York dealers, to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), New York;
• 1943: bequeathed by him to the Fogg Art Museum.

An almost illegible receipt from Whistler to C. A. Howell in 1878 acknowledged receipt of £50: 'I had received the £50 for the two small pictures you agreed upon.' ¹⁵ According to the Pennells, C. A. Howell recorded in his diary on 22 February 1878 buying five paintings from Whistler: Girl with Cherry Blossom y090, Nocturne y114 or Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach y119, Study for the Head of Miss Cicely H. Alexander y128, Sketch for a Portrait of Henry Greaves y198, and a 'Nocturne – winter scene in Chelsea' which was probably Nocturne: Grey and Gold - Chelsea Snow y174, the painting under discussion. ¹⁶ It was then sold (it is not really clear if it was sold by Howell or by Howell on Whistler's behalf) to Alfred Chapman. A letter from Whistler on 29 March 1878 thanks Chapman for 'sending up the Nocturne so instantly', possibly so that it could be exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878 (cat. no. 57). ¹⁷ However, none of this is certain.

It is confusing that on 5 November 1878 (shortly before the Whistler v. Ruskin trial was heard at the High Court) another letter from Whistler requested that a 'Nocturne in Grey and Gold' deposited with H. Graves & Co. should be delivered to Lucas (Luke) Alexander Ionides (1837-1924), and this letter is annotated by Howell, 'The picture described above has been received and sold by me.' ¹⁸

There is no doubt that it was in the hands of J. A. Chapman of Liverpool until 1894, at which time Whistler encouraged Alfred Atmore Pope (1842-1913) to buy it:

'And certainly, if you are at all inclined to act on your brother in laws theory of "buying all Whistlers", you ought to have a try for the Nocturne "Grey and Gold - Chelsea Snow" - you will find it in Miss Theodate's Catalogue (No 13). It is a beauty. Little as I wish to help Mr. Chapman to make money out of my brains, I should be delighted to know that the picture left that country, to find its home among its fellows in your good care and sympathy!' ¹⁹

Pope went to see 'Chelsea Snow' at Goupil's and told Whistler that he liked it but could not afford it, given his other purchases. ²⁰ Chapman apparently wanted David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) of the Goupil Gallery to sell it for £500. ²¹ Nothing further seems to have happened until, in January 1899, through his business outlet, the Company of the Butterfly, Whistler told Christine Anderson (Christiana Barrett, Mrs C. L. Baldwyn, Mrs C. A. M. Anderson) (b. 1865/1866) to ask Chapman if he would sell his 'Snow Nocturne.' ²² Apparently he would, and Cowan accordingly bought the 'Chelsea Nocturne - Gold & Grey.' ²³

There are several gaps in the provenance. According to Scott & Fowles, New York dealers, it was later in the collection of Edwin Amsinck, whose widow Antonie bequeathed it to the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, in 1921. It was sold by the museum some time after 1922. On 17 May 1926 it was sold to the Galerie G. Paffrath, Dusseldorf.

According to the records of the Macbeth Gallery, New York, it was later owned by Barbizon House, London, and was offered to the Macbeth Gallery through Knoedler's in February 1930 and returned in April, at which point it was exhibited in London. ²⁴ It was purchased by Scott & Fowles, New York dealers, who sold it to G. L. Winthrop in March 1933, and finally bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum in 1943.

Exhibitions

• 1878: II Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1878 (cat. no. 57) as 'Nocturne in Grey and Gold'.
• 1888: III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1888 (cat. no. 57) as 'Nachtstück in Grau und Gold'.
• 1892: Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 16) as 'Nocturne, Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow'.
• 1892: Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ-de-Mars, Paris, 1892 (cat. no. 1068) as 'Nocturne gris et or: – la neige à Chelsea'.
• 1901: The Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, MCMI. The Seventy-fifth, Edinburgh, 1901 (cat. no. 347) as 'Chelsea, Nocturne, Gold and Grey'.

Whistler's note, ' "Nocturne in Grey & Gold" (snowpiece) Grosvenor', confirms that this was the painting exhibited in 1878. ²⁵ A favorable review in The Examiner of 11 May 1878 stated that 'nothing could be more delicate and true to nature than the way in which he represents the mingling of artificial light with the lingering light of day.' The Glasgow Herald on 2 May 1878 commented: 'The Nocturne in Grey and Gold (57), which, being interpreted into vulgar language, is a night scene with fog and snow, is by far the most astonishing.'

Whistler's titles received some criticism, and it was at the time of the 1878 Grosvenor show that Whistler published 'The Red Rag', which referenced this painting; he wrote, 'My picture of a "Harmony in Grey and Gold" is an illustration of my meaning - a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot.' ²⁶ Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), although he misremembered the date as 1879, described the painting memorably as 'a snow scene in London in a fog, with a draggled little figure shuffling towards a lighted window. No one who was not there can imagine the revelation which these canvases were at the time.' ²⁷

In 1883 Whistler asked Alfred Chapman if he could borrow it again, but it is not clear if Chapman agreed to lend, despite Whistler's plea:

'I am asked to send several pictures to the Exposition Internationale- Rue de Sèze - very swell where each year different painters are chosen to represent different countries ... and I want your little man in the snow ... Do be very nice and let us continue the success that has been so long in coming!' ²⁸

However, in 1888 Chapman did agree to lend the 'Snow picture' to the III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1888; and 'A Nocturne in Grey & Gold (Snow Piece)' was insured for £350 and safely despatched after some delay. ²⁹

Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow, photograph, 1892, Goupil Album, GUL Whistler PH5/2

Whistler was very keen for Chapman to lend all his pictures to the 1892 Goupil retrospective, including 'Nocturne Grey & Gold - snow piece.' ³⁰ Having got it for the show, Whistler immediately wanted it to go on to Paris for another exhibition, and Chapman agreed, though as usual there was an almighty panic before it was delivered. ³¹

A rough sketch, Plan of a panel of pictures for the ISSPG m1582, shows that Whistler had hoped to borrow it for the 2nd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, London, 1899 but for some reason this did not happen.

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. 174, plate 94.

Authored by Whistler

• Whistler, James McNeill, 'The Red Rag', in 'Celebrities at Home. No. XCII. Mr Whistler at Cheyne-Walk', The World: A Journal For Men and Women, 22 May 1878, pp. 4-5. Reprinted in Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890, p. 126.
• Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, New York, NY, 1904, pp. 126, 307-08.
• Goupil Gallery and James McNeill Whistler, Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces [portfolio of photographs published after the Goupil Gallery Exhibition, March-April 1892], London, 1892, repr. pl. 16.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• II Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1878 (cat. no. 57) as 'Nocturne in Grey and Gold'.
• Blackburn, Henry, Grosvenor Notes, London, 1878, p. 20.
• III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1888 (cat. no. 57) as 'Nachtstück in Grau und Gold'.
• Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ-de-Mars, Paris, 1892 (cat. no. 1068) as 'Nocturne gris et or: – la neige à Chelsea'.
• Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 16) as 'Nocturne, Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow'.
• The Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, MCMI. The Seventy-fifth, Edinburgh, 1901 (cat. no. 347) as 'Chelsea, Nocturne, Gold and Grey'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Glasgow Herald, Glasgow, 2 May 1878, p. 5.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery,' Evening Mail, London, 3 May 1878, p. 1.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery,' The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 3 May 1878, p. 3.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery. (Second Notice)', The Examiner, London, 11 May 1878, p. 25.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery,' Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Leeds, 14 May 1878, p. 6.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Leeds Mercury, Leeds, 23 May 1878, p. 8.
• Anon., 'Here and there', Dundee Evening Telegraph, Dundee, 19 March 1892, p. 2.
• Anon., 'The Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition, Banffshire Journal and General Advertiser, Banff, 19 February 1901.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon. [Rossetti, William Michael?], 'Notes and News', The Academy, 19 February 1876, p. 180.
• 'Forthcoming English Pictures', The Art Monthly Review and Photographic Portfolio, 29 February 1876, no. 2, p. 15.
• Sickert, Walter R., 'Pictures of Actors', The Speaker, 29 May 1897.
• Bénédite, Léonce, 'Artistes Contemporains: Whistler', Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 33, 1905, pp. 403-10, 496-511; vol. 34, 1905, pp. 142-58, 231-46, at vol. 34, p. 239, repr.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cabanne, Pierre, Whistler, Bergamo, 1985, p. 257, repr.
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, New York, 2004, pp. 294-295.
• Duret, Théodore, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1904, repr. f.p. 82 (heliogravure).
• Holden, Donald, Whistler Landscapes and Seascapes, New York, 1969, p. 46, repr. p. 47.
• Laver, James, Whistler, London, 1930, p. 182.
• Enaud-Lechien, Isabelle, James Whistler, le peintre et le polémiste (1834-1903), Courbevoie, 1995, pp. 84-86, repr. p. 85.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler: A Reexamination, ed. Ruth E. Fine, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1987, p. 22.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 166-67.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, p. 559.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, p. 142, repr.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, pp. 142, 145, 159.
• Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, repr. pl. 49, p. 162.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, repr. pl. 26.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, p. 192, repr. pl. 80.
• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, pp. 20, 60-61.
• Weintraub, Stanley, Whistler: A Biography, London, 1974, pp. 140-41.

Books, General

• Bryan, Michael, Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, London, 1909-1910, vol. 5, p. 363.
• Cowan, John J., From 1846-1932, Edinburgh, 1933, p. 172.
• Newall, Christopher, The Grosvenor Gallery Exhibitions: Change and Continuity in the Victorian Art World, Cambridge, 1995, p. 135.
• Prettejohn, Elizabeth, Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 189.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner (ed.), Walter Sickert: the Complete Writings on Art, Oxford, 2000, pp. 172, 174.
• Sharpe, William Chapman, New York Nocturne: The City After Dark in Literature, Painting, and Photography, 1850-1950, Princeton, NJ, 2008, pp. 95-96, fig. 2.7.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Katalog der Neuren Meister, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 1922 (cat. no. 2487), p. 243.
• Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1972 (cat. no. 93) repr.
• Mortimer, Kristin A., Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Cambridge, MA, and New York, NY, 1985, p. 185 (cat. no. 210) repr.
• Burgard, Timothy Anglin, American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 1994, p. 10 (cat. no. 21).
• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Cambridge, MA, and New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 412-13 (cat. no. 441), repr. p. 413.

EXHIBITION:

• [Exhibition, London Academy of Art, London, 1930, as 'Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow'.]
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 119).
• Art in New England, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1939, p. 91.
• American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1972.
• American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 1994.
• The Persistence of Memory: Continuity and Change in American Cultures, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 1995-2001.
• Wolohojian, Stephan , Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, France, 2003, pp. 487-88 (cat. no. 215), repr.
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 66-67, 214, repr. fig. 56 (not exhibited).
• Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon; National Gallery, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003-2004 (cat. no. 215), pp. 471-72, repr.
• For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 2004.
• Epstein, Stacey B., Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, Addison Gallery of American Art, and Phillips Academy, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2015, pp. 49-54, repr. p. 54.

Journals 1906-Present

• Advert., Art News, 14 April 1928.
• Sutton, Denys, 'The Victorian Scene', Apollo, November 1978, vol. 107, pp. 290-91, repr. p. 291.

Websites

• Harvard Art Museums website at http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/230417.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. nos. 78, 361).

Other

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