The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet dates from 1877-1878. ¹

E. W. Godwin, Design for a fireplace and cabinet, 1877/1878, Victoria & Albert Museum

1877, September: Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) designed a fireplace, with an overmantel and side-panels, for William Watt (1834-1885), of William Watt & Co., art furniture manufacturers, 21 Grafton Street, London. Godwin's diary for 20 September recorded an appointment with Watt ('Watt 11 o'clock to 12.45. Paris Exhib.'); Godwin's design for the fireplace and the surrounds is inscribed, almost illegibly, 'Watt / Paris 22 Sep.77.' ²

1877, October: Godwin mentioned £50 received 'for the 2 bits of dec. for Paris.' ³

1877/1878: Godwin suggested that Whistler should paint a surrounding dado, and eventually Whistler decorated the panels at the back of the fireplace, overmantel, and side-panels for Watt & Co.

1878: Godwin, who designed the 'White House' for Whistler in Tite Street, London, collaborated with Whistler on designing its interior. Several writers have suggested that the fireplace and surrounds were intended for a 'Primrose Room' in the White House. ⁴ However, there is no evidence of this, although some White House items, including stoves by Thomas Jeckyll (1827-1881), and yellow Doulton tiles, mentioned by Whistler on 22 March in a letter to Godwin, were similar to components of the Watt fireplace. ⁵

Whistler decorating a wall in the 'White House', plans by E. W. Godwin, British Architect

Illustrations of the White House interior published in the British Architect on 6 December 1878 show Whistler painting on the wall above a fireplace, but there is no mention of any surrounding structure.

1878, March: Although there appears to have been no precise agreement between Whistler, Godwin, and Watt as to the work to be undertaken, Whistler worked on the decoration of the Watt fireplace and surrounds, preparing it for exhibition. He also repaired damage to the paintwork caused by Watt's workmen, 'involving the giving up of an entire day (Saturday) that I might carry through the Cabinet &c ... in time for Mr Watts exhibition here prior to his sending off.' ⁶ While admitting that he had exceeded Godwin's original proposal, Whistler complained that his expenses had not been covered: 'In return for all this good will, and blind to the complete success of the whole, Mr Watt has refused to pay me a penny more for extra labor and time!' ⁷

'Harmony in Yellow and Gold', Stand of William Watt & Co., Exposition Universelle, Paris 1878

1878, May-November: The fireplace and surrounds were exhibited as 'The Butterfly Cabinet and Fireplace' at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, at William Watt & Co.'s stand. As displayed in Paris, it incorporated one of Jeckyll's stoves, and Kaga porcelain on the shelves, lent by Liberty's, Regent Street. ⁸

1882: 'A large cabinet decorated by Mr Whistler's hand' was on show in Watt & Co.'s showrooms in Gower Street, London. ⁹

ca 1890: According to the Pennells, when the fireplace was acquired by Pickford Robert Waller (1849-1930), some twelve years after the exhibition, the stove and tiles were removed and the side panels converted into doors in their place, to create a cabinet. ¹⁰ However, this is not certain, since it had been described as a cabinet some eight years earlier.

Images

Subject

Titles

Most titles refer to the colour scheme of the exhibition stand, as in the examples given below:

• 'Decorations, Harmony in Yellow and Gold' (1878, W. Watt & Co.). ¹¹
• 'Harmony in Yellow and Gold' (1878, G. W. Smalley). ¹²
• 'He called [the room] a Harmony in Yellow and Gold, and others spoke of it as the Primrose Room' (1911, Pennell). ¹³
• 'Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet' (1980, YMSM). ¹⁴

The preferred title is 'Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet'.

Description

It was originally a fireplace with mahogany side-panels and over-mantel, designed by the architect Edward William Godwin (1833-1886), and manufactured by William Watt & Co.

'Harmony in Yellow and Gold', Stand of William Watt & Co., Exposition Universelle, Paris 1878

A description of the fireplace and surrounds as they appeared in Paris in 1878 appeared in American newspapers:

'Mr Whistler ... calls this room a Harmony in Yellow and Gold. Against a yellow wall is built up a chimney-piece and cabinet in one, of which the wood, like all the wood in the room, is a curiously light yellow mahogany, something very different from the flaming veneer known to the American for generations past, with drunk and straddling patterns all over it. The fire-place is flush with the front of the cabinet, the front panelled in gilt bars below the shelf and cornice, inclosing tiles of pale sulphur; above the shelf a cupboard, with clear glass and triangular open niches at either side, holding bits of Kaga porcelain ... ; the frame of the grate brass; the rails in polished steel; the fender the same. Yellow on yellow, gold on gold, everywhere. The peacock reappears, the eyes and the breast feathers of him ... the feather is all gold, boldly and softly laid on a gold-tinted wall. The feet to the table-legs are tipped with brass, and rest on a yellowish brown velvet rug. Chairs and sofas are covered with yellow, pure rich yellow velvet, darker in shade than the yellow of the wall, and edged with yellow fringe.' ¹⁵

Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet, detail with monogram

The panel over the fireplace was signed with Whistler's butterfly monogram at the lower right corner of the wide central panel immediately above the mantelpiece. When it was exhibited on Watt's stand, the walls to left and right of the fireplace, above the dado, were painted with more cloud patterns, and signed with a butterfly monogram above these patterns, to right of the fireplace.

Cabinet in Pickford Waller's dining room, and detail, photograph in album, GUL PH22/149

Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet, The Hunterian

The fireplace and surrounding panels were reconstructed as a cabinet some time after 1878. In its present state (2020) it is a mahogany cabinet of rectangular form with canted sides, the base section with two panelled doors in the centre, the sides with open shelves and panels of yellow tiling divided by brass mouldings below; the centre section with glazed middle and panelled back, with a shelf and pedimented back above flanked by shaped and stepped supports. The doors, and the central section above, were decorated by Whistler with Japanese motifs (cloud/wave or feather patterns) and butterflies on a primrose yellow ground, and the mahogany panels were decorated with similar motifs, and butterflies and petals in gold. ¹⁶

Comments

William Watt (1834-1885) produced and sold some of the finest furniture of the Aesthetic Movement, including cabinets designed by E. W. Godwin, some with panels painted by Godwin's then wife Beatrice Philip (Mrs E. W. Godwin, Mrs J. McN. Whistler) (1857-1896). ¹⁷

David P. Curry commented on Whistler's use of yellow and gold:

'He brought out with gilding the areas that would have been in deepest shadow - the back of the central section and the interior of the glassed-in portion of the top. On the bottom section he balanced the unmodulated yellow tiles with two central panels that are painted with patterns reminiscent of the Peacock Room. Elsewhere he sprinkled little touches of gold paint that add sparkle to the rich and sombre surface of the mahogany.' ¹⁸

Susan Soros considered that 'Whistler's abstract decoration provides a degree of animation to what is otherwise a ponderous and massive piece of furniture.' ¹⁹

The Hunterian commented:

'The scheme impressively articulated both Godwin and Whistler's interest in beauty and harmony in design as well as fine art. Whistler painted Godwin's centrepiece, this striking, architectonic fireplace/cabinet, and the flanking dado and wall. The influence of oriental art can be seen in the streamlined forms of the fireplace and Whistler's decoration of yellow and gold butterflies, blossom, and oriental cloud motifs.' ²⁰

NOTE:

Watt & Co., Cabinet, National Museum of Scotland, in 2014

ANOTHER CABINET: A maple and brass cabinet manufactured by Watt & Co. was bought by the National Museums of Scotland in 2013, given the title 'Harmony in Yellow and Gold – The Cloud Cabinet', and published at that time as having been designed by E. W. Godwin, and decorated and signed in gold by Whistler, for the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle. ²¹ It is a striking piece of furniture with symmetrical inlaid flower and strap patterns on the panels. Whether it was designed by Godwin is uncertain, however, and the gold 'cloud' patterns and 'butterflies' painted on it appear to be merely a later imitation of Whistler's work. The 'butterflies' do not resemble Whistler's butterfly monogram. It was certainly not the fireplace/cabinet from the 1878 exhibition.

Technique

Composition

Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet, detail

Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, Freer Gallery of Art

The patterns painted on the fireplace panels (and now on Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet) have been variously described as cloud, wave, fish scale patterns etc. They are somewhat similar to motifs seen on the walls, ceiling and panels of Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178, painted between 1876 and 1877, which were described by Whistler as 'A pattern, invented from the Eye of the Peacock' and 'a pattern devised from the breast-feathers.' Indeed, when Godwin visited the Peacock Room, he sketched these feather patterns on his copy of Whistler's pamphlet. ²²

David Park Curry suggests sources for the Peacock Room designs, including fish scale patterns reproduced by G. A. Audsley and J. L. Bowes in The Keramic Art of Japan in 1881, and ancient wave patterns in Owen Jones's The Grammar of Ornament, published in 1856. ²³

Bendix suggested that Whistler's painted designs for the cabinet 'were based on Japanese screen painting, the petal design is similar to that on his golden staircase at No. 2 Lindsey Row, and the cloud (or wave) pattern is essentially the same as that in the Peacock Room.' ²⁴ However, the staircase decoration, Panels from the Entrance Hall at 49 Princes Gate y175, has little in common with the fireplace and stand decorations, apart from being in gold.

The Pennells (1908) thought that Whistler's decorations might have originated in a design intended for William Cleverly Alexander (1840-1916), the London banker; their take on this emphasizes Whistler's input on the exhibition stand:

'In the Paris International Exhibition of 1878, Whistler showed the section of a room decorated by him, his only exhibit. ... It may have been the design he wanted to carry out for Mr. Alexander; most likely, it was intended for the decoration of the White House, which E. W. Godwin, the architect, was building for him in Tite Street, Chelsea.' ²⁵

This is unconvincing, since the surviving pen drawings by Whistler for panelling and shelving intended for Alexander's Aubrey House are actually very simple and unadorned, whatever his ideas may have been for developing these. ²⁶

Hilary Taylor considered the design and furniture for the Watt & Co. stand were a 'trial run' for Whistler's White House. ²⁷ Likewise, Linda Merrill suggested that it was intended for the 'Primrose Room' in the White House. ²⁸

Technique

Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet, The Hunterian, 2014

'Harmony in Yellow and Gold', Stand of William Watt & Co., Exposition Universelle, Paris 1878

Whistler's original work was apparently damaged in March 1878 shortly before the fireplace/cabinet and surrounds were sent to Paris. He complained to Godwin:

'You know the work I have done for your client - and you know the thorough way in which I have carried it out - far beyond the original proposal from you - You know also the vexations I have been subjected to in the way of painting completed and destroyed afterwards by the blundering of Mr Watt's men - The work having consequently to be done over again at great loss of most precious time to me, … appointments made and not kept by his people, involving the giving up of an entire day (Saturday) that I might carry through the Cabinet &c ... in time for Mr Watts exhibition here prior to his sending off.' ²⁹

It is not clear how extensive the damage was, and whether it was to the cabinet (note that at this point Whistler does describe his work as being on the 'Cabinet'), the side-panels or overmantel, or to the dado or the stand itself.

The side panels, and the central section above the fireplace, were decorated by Whistler with Japanese 'cloud' motifs and butterflies on a primrose yellow ground, and the mahogany panels were decorated with similar motifs, or butterflies and petals in gold. It was signed with Whistler's butterfly monogram at the lower right corner of the wide central panel immediately above the mantelpiece.

As exhibited on Watt's stand, the wall to left and right of the fireplace/cabinet, above the dado, was painted with more cloud patterns, and was signed with a butterfly above these patterns, to right of the fireplace.

Conservation History

Cabinet in Pickford Waller's dining room, and detail, photograph in album, GUL PH22/149

The fireplace was converted into a cabinet by replacing the grate with doors adapted from the dado. This may have been carried out by the firm of Watt & Co., or possibly when it was acquired by Pickford Waller. ³⁰ The three panels that made up the dado to left of the fireplace were moved and became the cupboard door at left, and those to right became the door at right.

History

Provenance

• 1878, March: a fireplace and surrounds, designed by Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) and decorated by Whistler, was completed for William Watt (1834-1885) of William Watt & Co., art furniture manufacturers;
• 1878, May-November: the fireplace with its overmantel and side-panels was exhibited on a stand at the Exposition Universelle in Paris;
• 1878, September: according to Godwin, a 'princess' bought 'our mantelpiece of the Paris Exhibition'.
• 1882: exhibited as a 'cabinet' in the showrooms of William Watt & Co. in Grafton Street, Gower Street, London.
• 1890/1909: bought by the collector Pickford Robert Waller (1849-1930), London;
• 1930: on his death, the cabinet was bequeathed to his daughter Sybil Christina Waller (1882-1973);
• 1973: after her death, sold at auction, London, Christie, 4 October 1973 (lot 196), and bought by the University of Glasgow for £8400, with support from the National Fund for Acquisitions and the Art Fund.

Accounts of the creation and provenance of the fireplace/cabinet are not entirely consistent, and are discussed here in more detail.

The fireplace and surrounding panels were designed by E. W. Godwin for Watt & Co. and decorated by Whistler for the same firm. The sparse evidence of Godwin's comments that 'a princess possesses our mantelpiece of the Paris Exhibition' and 'Watt is so proud of his Princess-Purchaser', indicate that Godwin thought it had been bought from Watt & Co. by September 1878, well before the end of the Paris exhibition in November 1878. ³¹

It is possible that the 'princess' was Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848-1939), to whom Godwin dedicated a pamphlet illustrating his designs for William Watt & Co. in 1877. ³² Godwin designed a studio for Princess Louise in Kensington Palace in 1878. The Princess was constantly travelling in attendance on the Queen and the rest of the royal family. She visited the British Pavilion in the Paris exhibition on 3 May 1878 with her husband, the Marquis of Lorne, and the Prince and Princess of Wales. ³³ She could perfectly well have communicated with Watt & Co. in London in August or September in between her official duties, but no record of this has been found. By September she and her husband were at Balmoral, probably shooting something.

However, in 1882, 'A large cabinet decorated by Mr Whistler's hand' was among other furniture designed by E. W. Godwin and exhibited in two rooms of Watt & Co.'s premises. ³⁴ Aslin states that it had been converted into a cabinet immediately after the 1878 exhibition. ³⁵ Although there are conflicting stories about what happened to the cabinet after the exhibition, the Pennells were probably wrong in stating that Pickford Waller bought the Watt & Co. fireplace and surrounds from a second-hand shop in London around 1890. ³⁶ The first mention of the cabinet being in Waller's possession is in 1909 when it was photographed by William E. Gray for Joseph Pennell (1860-1926). ³⁷ The Pennells suggested that it was Waller who was responsible for the reconstruction of the 'chimneypiece':

'There was ... a chimneypiece which, twelve years or so afterwards, was found by Mr. Pickford Waller in a secondhand furniture shop and bought. The stove was taken out; two panels, with a pattern suggested for the dado, were turned into doors, and the chimneypiece is now a cabinet with Whistler's decorations almost untouched.' ³⁸

Cabinet in Pickford Waller's dining room, and detail, photograph in album, GUL Whistler PC 22/149

Pickford Waller certainly bought the cabinet at some time, and it was photographed in its present form while in his possession. Photographs of the cabinet in Waller's press cutting books show it against a background of flowery wall-paper, but unfortunately these images are not dated. ³⁹

Exhibitions

• 1878: Exposition Universelle, Champs de Mars, Paris, 1878, at William Watt's stand, 'Drawing Room Furniture. The Butterfly Cabinet and Fireplace ... Decorations in yellow and gold designed and painted by J. A. McV. [sic] Whistler'.

'Harmony in Yellow and Gold', William Watt & Co. stand, Exposition Universelle, Paris 1878

The original design for a fireplace and surrounds, with co-ordinated furniture, was made by Godwin for William Watt & Co., Art Furniture Manufacturers, and was exhibited on a stand at the Exposition Universelle (Universal Exhibition) in Paris, which was held from May through to 10 November 1878. The signboard above the stand reads:

[to left:] 'Wm. WATT / 21, Grafton St. Gower Street. / LONDON' [and to right,] 'Designed by E. W. GODWIN, ESQr. / Decoration Harmony in Yellow and Gold, / Designed and Painted by / J. A. McN. WHISTLER ESQr./ CHINA Lent by A. L. LIBERTY /Regent Street.'

It was described in the catalogue as 'Drawing Room Furniture. The Butterfly Cabinet and Fireplace ... Decorations in yellow and gold designed and painted by J. A. McV. [sic] Whistler'. The porcelain selected for the shelves during the display at the Paris exhibition was Kaga ware, Japanese export ware with striking red-gold decoration. William Watt was awarded a bronze medal for nearly all his exhibits in the British section of the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878, but not for this stand.

A lengthy and at times unflattering commentary on Whistler's decorations was written by Lewis F. Day for the British Architect and Northern Engineer:

'The only painted decoration is quite in harmony, viz., gold on pale yellow gold, in the panels of the overmantel, and again gold on the lemon-yellow of the walls. By the way, the manner in which the painted decoration is, as it were, carried through on the wall, is ingenious and suggestive.

This painted decoration is due to Mr Whistler, and is, as we might have anticipated, eccentric. It consists of blossoms and butterflies, very boldly and daringly put in – as clever, but as coarse, as the common Japanese screen-painting we have seen before on Mr Whistler's picture frames – (there is one at least, painted rudely in blue on gold in a Japanese fashion, just now at the Grosvenor Gallery) – but it resembles no other English work. It is cleverly done, no one but Mr Whistler would have had the impudence to do it – but was it worth the doing? One thing it will attain certainly – and that is notoriety; it cannot fail to be talked about. It will be remembered as the most frantic specimen of decoration in the furniture of 1878.' ⁴⁰

A more positive description of Watt's stand also associated the design with Japanese art, and mentioned the 'Kaga porcelain, chosen for the yellowishness of the red, which is a characteristic of that ware.' It continued:

'The framework of the sofa has a hint of the Japanese influence, which faintly, but only faintly, suggests itself all through the room. Its lattice-work back and wheel-patterned ends might pass for bamboo; the carpentry is as light as if the long fingers of a saffron-faced artist had coaxed it into shape.' ⁴¹

Reviews were, as is obvious, variable. The Magazine of Art called it a 'Symphony in Yellow', with furniture of the 'Japanese type affected by Mr Godwin', and commented, 'Mr Whistler has painted a kind of scale ornament, intended possibly for clouds on the wall and mantelpiece', but the critic added, 'For its startling mode of attracting the attention of the visitor, the work of Mr Watt is unrivalled. We cannot say that we should care to be surrounded in our homes by the "agony" in yellow.' ⁴²

Recent Displays:

Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet, in the Hunterian, ca 2000

It has been exhibited in the Hunterian against a wall with Whistler's paintings, and also surrounded by the furniture that was in his studio in the 1890s, and came to the University of Glasgow with the bequest of Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958).

Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet, in the Hunterian, ca 2003

It was displayed in the The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 exhibition in 2012, and described by the curator, Stephen Calloway, as the product of 'the virtuoso collaboration between Godwin and Whistler: a glorious piece of furniture titled Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet (1877–1878).' ⁴³

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. 195), plate 131, as 'Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet.'

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Exposition Universelle, Champs de Mars, Paris, 1878, at William Watt's stand, 'Drawing Room Furniture. The Butterfly Cabinet and Fireplace ... Decorations in yellow and gold designed and painted by J. A. McV. [sic] Whistler'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon, 'Exhibits for the Paris Exhibition', The Building News, vol. 34, 22 March 1878, p. 287.
• 'Our Lithographic Illustrations. "Anglo-Japanese Furniture at Paris exhibition by E. W. Godwin, F.S.A." ', Building News and Engineering Journal, vol. 34, 14 June 1878, pp. 596, 603.
• G. W. S. [Smalley, George W.], 'A Harmony in Yellow and Gold', American Architect & Building News, vol. 4, no. 135, 27 July 1878, p. 36, first published as 'Household decoration ... Whistler's "Harmony in Yellow and Gold" ', New York Tribune, 6 July 1878, p. 2.
• Day, Lewis F., 'Notes on English Decorative Art in Paris. Part 3', British Architect and Northern Engineer, vol. 10, 12 July 1878, pp. 15-16.
• Anon., 'The Paris Universal exhibition V', Magazine of Art, September 1878, vol. 1, p. 116.
• Artist, vol. 3, 1882, p. 387.
• Anon., The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, 1 December 1882, p. 388.
• Smalley, Mrs Phoebe Garnaut, 'The Primrose Room' [?], The Lamp, March 1904.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Bendix, Deanna Marohn, Diabolical Designs: Paintings, Interiors, and Exhibitions of James McNeill Whistler, Washington and London, 1995, pp. 97, 150, 156-57, 164-66, repr. fig. 58.
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, New York, 2004, pp. 139-40.
• Koval, Anne, Whistler in his Time, London, 1994, p. 60, repr. pl. 57.
• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 261.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 219-20.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911, p. 158.
• Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, p. 196,repr. pl. 66.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, repr. f.p. 100, as in Exposition Universelle, 1878.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, pp. 86-87, repr. f.p. 100.
• Taylor, Hilary, James McNeill Whistler, London, 1978, p. 85, repr. fig. 61.

Books, General

• Adams, Steven, The Arts and Crafts Movement, Baldock, 1987, p. 101.
• Aslin, Elizabeth, E. W. Godwin, Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, 1986, pp. 13-14, cat. no. 9, pl. 64.
• Banham, Joanna, Sally Macdonald, and Julian Porter, Victorian Interior Design, New York, 1991, pp. 115-16, 153.
• Farr, Dennis Larry Ashwell, English Art 1870-1940. The Oxford History of English Art, Oxford, 1978, pp. 141-42.
• Holt, Elizabeth Gilmore, The Expanding World of Art, 1874-1902, vol. 1, Universal Expositions and State-Sponsored Fine Arts Exhibitions, New Haven, 1988, p. 23.
• Lambourne, Lionel, The Aesthetic Movement, London, 1996, pp. 64-65, repr. p. 165.
• Lambourne, Lionel, Japonisme: cultural crossings between Japan and the West, London, 2005, p. 112.
• Paolini, Claudio, Alessandro Ponte, and Ornella Selvafolta, Il bello "ritrovato", Gusto, ambienti, mobili dell'Ottocento, Milan, 1990, pp. 354-58, 371.
• Soros, Susan, The Secular Furniture of E. W. Godwin, New Haven, 1999, pp. 205, 226, cat. no. 369, no. 139-a.
• Spencer, Robin, The Aesthetic Movement, London and New York, 1972, p. 60.
• Walker, John, James McNeill Whistler, New York, 1987, pp. 77-78.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Exhibition, Fine Art Society, London, 1972, p. 60.
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 66-67 (not exhibited).
• Calloway, Stephen, and Lynn Federle Orr (eds), The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2011 (no catalogue number), repr. pl. 26.

Journals 1906-Present

• Aslin, Elizabeth, 'The Furniture Designs of E. W. Godwin', Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin, vol. 3, October 1967, pp. 145-54 (reprinted 1971, vol. 13, pp. 3-12), at pp. 151-53, drawings by Godwin repr. p. 153.
• Curry, David Park, 'Whistler and Decoration', Antiques, vol. 126, no. 5, November 1984, pp. 1186-99, at pp. 1196-97.
• Curry, David Park, ‘Total Control: Whistler at an Exhibition’, in: Ruth Fine (ed.), James McNeill Whistler: A Reexamination, Studies in the History of Art, vol. 19, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 67-82, at p. 81, note 37.
• Kinchin, Juliet, ' "Harmony" or "agony" in yellow and gold?', Art Quarterly, Summer 2000, pp. 28-31.
• Lumley, John, 'The Pickford Wallers', in: John Herbert (ed.), Christie’s Review of the Season 1974, London, 1975, pp. 155-61, at pp. 159-60, repr. p. 155 in P. Waller's house ca 1908.
• Powell, Nicholas, 'Review', Apollo, vol. 124 (new series 295), September 1986, p. 226.
• Prince, Geraldine, 'The Peacock Painter', Scottish Portrait Magazine, October 1984, pp. 18-19.
• Watanabe, Toshio, 'Whistler and Japan. A lecture presented to the Society on 16th October 1990', The Japan Society Proceedings, vol. 117, Spring 1991, p. 19.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• Anon, 'Cabinet sold to university for 8,000 gns', Daily Telegraph, London, 5 October 1973.
• Norman, Geraldine, 'Price in the clouds for Whistler's butterflies', The Times, London, 5 October 1973.

Websites

On Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Butterfly Cabinet:

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/41302.

On the 'Cloud Cabinet':

• 'Cloud cabinet', Art and Design, National Museum of Scotland website at https://www.nms.ac.uk/cloudcabinet.
• The Art Fund website at http://www.artfund.org.

Unpublished

• Bromfield, David J., The Art of Japan in late nineteenth century Europe. Problems of Art Criticism and Theory, vol. 2, Ph.D, University of Leeds, 1977, p. 712.
• Soros, Susan Weber, Whistler as Collector, Interior Colorist and Decorator, Master's thesis, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, 1987, pp. 57-65, 142-44, repr. pl. 48, 49.

Other

• None.