The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses dates from between 1883 and 1884. ¹

Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses, Freer Gallery of Art

It is dated from the technique and butterfly signature. It was first exhibited in 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 4).

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Red and blue – Lindsey Houses' (1884, Dowdeswell). ²
• 'A Note in Red' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ³
• 'A Note in Red' (1948, B. A. Stubbs). ⁴
• 'Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

The accepted title, 'Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses' as given in the 1980 catalogue, is based on the original Dowdeswell's title.

Description

Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses, Freer Gallery of Art

In the foreground, several people walk or stand by the railings looking our on the riverside. Beyond the bank is a row of houses, including, to right of centre, a substantial four-storey red-roofed block of houses. The sky or blue, scattered with puffs of white cloud, in the centre of which appears to be a butterfly.

Site

Lindsey Houses on Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, was built in 1674 for the third Earl of Lindsey, and was remodelled in 1750 by Count Zinzendorf for the Moravian community in London. It was divided into seven separate houses in 1775, and runs from 96 to 101 Cheyne Walk.

Whistler lived at No. 2 Lindsey Row, Chelsea from February 1867 until he moved to the White House in 1879: in 1890 he was at No. 21 and in 1902 at No. 74 in Lindsey Row. However at the time this oil was painted he would have been living just round the corner at 13 Tite Street.

Whistler had etched Lindsey Houses [161] in 1876 or 1877.

Technique

Technique

Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses, Freer Gallery of Art

The colours on the buildings are rich shades of grey, red and brown, thinly dabbed and scrubbed onto the panel. Likewise the beige and grey of the foreground is thinly scrubbed in. This contrasts with more fluid, creamy full brushstrokes on the sky. The painting is curiously uneven, possibly reflecting a work done in haste.

Conservation History

The varnish was removed in 1921, the painting was resurfaced in 1931, cleaned and varnished in 1937, resurfaced in 1938 and in 1952-53.

The butterfly signature, said to be at lower left on the fence, appears to have been partly erased and painted over. According to Freer Gallery conservation records, the butterfly in the lower left corner was almost obliterated when the painting was resurfaced and cradled in 1938.

Frame

Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses, Freer Gallery of Art

Large Dowdeswell frame, made for Whistler's 1884 exhibition [14.1 cm]. 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. 4) 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 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.' ⁷

It was bought by C. L. Freer, August 1902, for $500.

Account

Exhibitions

• 1884: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 4) as 'Red and blue – Lindsey Houses'.
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 11) as 'A Note in Red'.

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. 306), plate 194, as 'Red and Blue: Lindsey Houses'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 4) as 'Red and blue – Lindsey Houses'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 11) as 'A Note in Red'.

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. 11).
• Prideaux, Tom, The World of Whistler, New York, 1970, repr. p. 180.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, pl. 104.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 129, 293-94, pl. 33.
• 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 (02.157) as 'A Note in Red'.

EXHIBITION:

• Selection of Art Objects from The Freer Collection, National Museum, Washington, DC, 1912 (cat. no. 5).
• Myers, Kenneth John, Mr. Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2003, pp. 82, 85, repr. p. 41.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1902.157a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 342).

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.