The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Blue and Grey: Unloading, Freer Gallery of Art

Blue and Grey: Unloading probably dates from 1884, before it was exhibited in 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 56). ¹

Three panels very close in size, Blue and Grey: Unloading y296, Black and Emerald: Coal Mine y302 and Harmony in Brown and Gold: Old Chelsea Church y305, probably date from shortly before they were exhibited in Dowdeswell's.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Blue and grey – Unloading' (1884, Dowdeswell). ²
• 'Bleu et argent: Le Debarquement' (1887, Petit). ³
• 'Blue and Grey: Unloading' (1980, YMSM) ⁴

The 1980 title 'Blue and Grey: Unloading' is based on the original title, with punctuation altered for the sake of conformity.

Description

Blue and Grey: Unloading, Freer Gallery of Art

A beach scene in horizontal format. A small sailing boat is beached on the shore, goods being unloaded onto a cart, and another boat lies beached further away to right.

Site

Possibly St Ives, Cornwall, though it could be a Dutch scene.

Technique

Technique

Blue and Grey: Unloading, Freer Gallery of Art

It was thinly and freely painted, a fine brush being used for details like the rigging of the boats. The mast and rigging are almost drawn with free, long strokes of the brush. The colouring is subdued, but a stroke of white, near the top of the mast, provides a bright highlight. Individual brushstrokes are visible, the paint being of a creamy consistency, but in the thinner areas, the wood grain shows through adding, as the Freer website says 'tonal variations and texture.' ⁵

Conservation History

Blue and Grey: Unloading, photograph, 1980

There was originally a faint butterfly signature at lower right but it has more or less disappeared. It is seen in the slightly black and white photograph reproduced above, taken under a very bright light.

The painting was, according to Freer Gallery files, cleaned and resurfaced in 1931, cleaned and varnished in 1937, and resurfaced in 1938, 1942 and 1952-53.

Frame

Blue and Grey: Unloading, Freer Gallery of Art

Small Dowdeswell frame, made for Whistler's one-man exhibition in 1884 [11.1cm]. ⁶

History

Provenance

• 1885: bought from Messrs Dowdeswell by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934);
• 1902: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

It was exhibited in Whistler's one-man show 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 56) and bought in the following year by H. S. Theobald. ⁷ Whistler wrote to Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929) later in the year:

'I must know the whereabouts of every one of my little pictures -

You promised that you would give me the address of each one by referring to the catalogues -

Then again, you must arrange with the man who bought the lot that remained over after the exhibition of the "Flesh color & grey", to let his collection go with me to America.' ⁸

This did not happen. It was many years before the painting came to America. In June 1902, Whistler sent C. L. Freer a telegram 'Theobald paintings at Marchants') informing him that the paintings owned by Theobald were apparently for sale. ⁹ It was bought by C. L. Freer in August 1902, for $500.

Exhibitions

• 1884: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 56) as 'Blue and grey – Unloading'.
• 1887: Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 171) as 'Bleu et argent: Le Debarquement'.

This was among several paintings commended by Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) in 1884 for 'Beauty of handling and high finish.' ¹⁰

In 1887, Whistler asked Theobald for loans for an exhibition in Paris:

' I am sending some pictures and drawings of mine to a very swell exhibition in Paris - and I am most anxious to borrow from you some 14 or 15 of the little things of mine you have on the staircase and in your dining room, that I may exhibit them at the same time -' ¹¹

Theobald was a generous lender and 'Bleu et argent: Le Debarquement' was among several works from his collection shown at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1887.

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.

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. 296), plate 210, as 'Blue and Grey: Unloading'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 56) as 'Blue and grey – Unloading'.
• Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (171) as 'Bleu et argent: Le Debarquement'.

Journals 1855-1905

• ‘An Enthusiast’, [Sickert, W. R.], 'Mr Whistler and His Art', The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, vol. 5, 1 June 1884, pp. 199-201.
• [Review of Dowdeswell 1884 exhibition], The British Almanac of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge for the Year … 1885, London, 1885, vol. 58, p. 173.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Holden, Donald, Whistler Landscapes and Seascapes, New York, 1969, p. 63, pl. 21.

Books, General

• Robins, Anna Gruetzner (ed.), Walter Sickert: the Complete Writings on Art, Oxford, 2000, p. 5.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 138, 294, pl. 42.
• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 14 (02.150).

EXHIBITION:

• Selection of Art Objects from The Freer Collection, National Museum, Washington, DC, 1912 (cat. no. 4).
• Myers, Kenneth John, Mr. Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2003, pp. 14, 94, repr. p. 40.

Journals 1906-Present

• Newton, Joy, and Margaret F. MacDonald, 'Whistler: Search for a European Reputation', Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, vol. 41, 1978, pp. 148-59, p. 155, repr. p. 156.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1902.150a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 436).

Other

• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.