The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Violet and Silver: The Great Sea dates from the early 1880s, probably from Whistler's trip to Cornwall in 1884.

Violet and Silver: The Great Sea, Freer Gallery of Art

It was first exhibited in 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 33). ¹ The signature, however, appears to da)te from much later, possibly after 1900.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible and radically dissimilar titles have been suggested:

• 'Violet and silver. The Great Sea' (1884, Dowdeswell). ²
• 'Bleu et argent: La grande Mer' (1887, Petit). ³
• 'Green and Gold – the Great Sea' (1903, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). ⁴
• 'Violet and Silver: The Great Sea' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

'Violet and Silver: The Great Sea' is the preferred title.

Description

Violet and Silver: The Great Sea, Freer Gallery of Art

A seascape in horizontal format. Breakers roll in over a deep blue-green sea to a sandy shore. Big grey clouds scurry across a pale blue sky.

Site

The view almost certainly shows Porthmeor Beach, the broadest and longest beach west of the harbour of St Ives, Cornwall. ⁶

Technique

Technique

Violet and Silver: The Great Sea, Freer Gallery of Art

It was freely and vigorously painted. The white surf was indicated by a square-ended brush that edged along the panel from left to right in short, jerking strokes. The nearer surf and beach were painted smoothly, with long strokes of fairly thin paint. A smaller brush was used for the figures, the distant rollers and the uneven skyline. The sky itself was painted with broad, criss-crossing and bouncing brushstrokes, which convey the changing shapes of the wind-blown clouds effectively.

Conservation History

According to Freer Gallery files, the varnish was removed in 1921, and it was cleaned and varnished in 1937, resurfaced in 1938, and cleaned and surfaced in 1951.

Frame

Large Dowdeswell frame, made for Whistler's one-man exhibition in 1884 [14.1 cm]. ⁷

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. 33) and bought by H. S. Theobald, who was almost certainly the collector described by Whistler as having bought a number of paintings after a Dowdeswell exhibition. He wrote to Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929):

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

In June 1902, Whistler sent C. L. Freer a telegram saying 'Theobald paintings at Marchants', informing him that the paintings owned by Theobald were apparently for sale. ⁹ As a result, C. L. Freer bought it in August 1902, for $750.

Exhibitions

• 1884: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 33) as 'Violet and silver. The Great Sea'.
• 1887: possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 168) as 'Bleu et argent: La grande Mer'.
• 1902: possibly Douzième Exposition, Ouvrages de Peintures, Sculpture, Dessin, Gravure, Architecture et Objets d'Art, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Grand Palais, Paris, 1902 (cat. no. 1192) as 'Bleu et argent: La grande Mer'.
• 1903: Seventy-second Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1903 (cat. no. 5).
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 5) as 'Green and Gold – the Great Sea'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 103) as 'Green and Gold – the Great Sea'.

It is not certain that all these exhibits are the same picture: the colour changes in the titles are unexpected.

In 1884 a review in the Morning Post described this painting as 'a rough, vigorous study of the seashore.' ¹⁰

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. 298), plate 193, as 'Violet and Silver: The Great Sea'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 33) as 'Violet and silver. The Great Sea'.
• Possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 168).
• Possibly Douzième Exposition, Ouvrages de Peintures, Sculpture, Dessin, Gravure, Architecture et Objets d'Art, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Grand Palais, Paris, 1902 (cat. no. 1192) as 'Bleu et argent: La grande Mer'.
• Seventy-second Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1903 (cat. no. 5) as 'Green and Gold – the Great Sea'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 5) as 'Green and Gold – the Great Sea'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 103) as 'Green and Gold – the Great Sea'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Messrs. Dowdeswell's Gallery', Morning Post, London, 24 May 1884, p. 5.

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, p. 156 (cat. no. 5).
• Holden, Donald, Whistler Landscapes and Seascapes, New York, 1969, repr. pl. 26.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, pp. 13, 15, 28, repr. p. 15.

Books, General

• Merrill, Linda, An Ideal Country: Paintings by Dwight William Tryon in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, Hanover and London, 1990, p. 141, fig. 90.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• 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. 16 (02.148).
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 294, pl. 46.

EXHIBITION:

• Selection of Art Objects from The Freer Collection, National Museum, Washington, DC, 1912 (cat. no. 11).
• Inaugural Exhibition, Toledo Museum of Art, 1912 (cat. no. 109).
• Myers, Kenneth John, Mr. Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2003, p. 90, repr. p. 38.
• Tovey, David, St Ives Art pre-1890: The Dawn of the Colony, Tate St Ives, St Ives, 2008, p. 57 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1902.148a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 402).

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.