The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Grey House was probably painted in Amsterdam when Whistler and his wife were there in September 1889. ¹

The Grey House, Freer Gallery of Art

The Embroidered Curtain, etching & drypoint, The Hunterian, GLAHA 46999 (G451 2/10)

It shows the same scene as Jews' Quarter, Amsterdam [449] and The Embroidered Curtain [451], which date from 1889.

Images

Subject

Titles

Only one title is known:

• 'The Grey House' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ²
• 'The Grey House' (1980, YMSM). ³

Description

The Grey House, Freer Gallery of Art

A house front in vertical format. In the foreground is a canal, and several figures stand on the narrow road above it, in front of the houses, and on the steps leading up to a pair of doors at right. There is also a small door at left. A mosaic of many-paned windows surrounds the doors.

Site

The Embroidered Curtain, etching & drypoint, The Hunterian, GLAHA 46999 (G451 2/10)

The site was familiar to the Whistlers, being on the Palmgracht, near their hotel in Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. Whistler drew several etchings, including The Embroidered Curtain [451] and The Steps, Amsterdam [452], of houses on the Palmgracht, fronting onto a picturesque little canal, the Jordaan. The Embroidered Curtain, reproduced above, shows two houses on the Palmgracht, numbers 52 and 54.

G. H. Breitner, Gezicht op de Palmgracht te Amsterdam, 1889/1895, photograph, RKD ( Netherlands Institute for Art History)

A photograph by George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923), who greatly admired Whistler's etchings, shows the frontage of Palmgracht Nos. 54, 52 and 50. ⁴

In 1895 the canal was filled in; these houses were pulled down and replaced in the 20th century.

Technique

Composition

The Grey House, Freer Gallery of Art

The Grey House is similar in composition to the etching The Embroidered Curtain [451] and shows the same scene as the etching, Jews' Quarter, Amsterdam [449] of 1889. It appears however to be an independent work.

Technique

It was painted with comparatively broad, free brushstrokes on a grey-painted chamfered panel. The brushstrokes in subtle, restrained colours (shades of grey with modest touches of pink and coral-red) leave much of the undercoat showing through. It is probable that The Grey House was not completed.

Conservation History

Freer Gallery files record that in 1921 'a light grey streaky surface' that was originally transparent had become opaque and was removed without damaging the paint. It was surfaced in 1933, resurfaced in 1938, and cleaned and surfaced in 1951.

Frame

Grau-style, American manufactured, dating from 1903. ⁵ The frame was regilded in 1960.

History

Provenance

• 1903: bought from Whistler by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, July 1903, for £150;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime. 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. 385), plate 225, as 'The Grey House'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 4) as 'The Grey House'.

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. 155 (cat. no. 4).
• Heijbroek, J. F., and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, Zwolle and Amsterdam, 1997, pp. 64-66, 79, 81, 83-84, 88, 91-92, 110.
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 128-29.

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. 146, 295, pl. 53.
• 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 (03.182).

Journals 1906-Present

• Heijbroek, J. F., 'Holland van het water: de bezoeken van James Abbott McNeill Whistler aan Nederland', Bulletin Rijksmuseum, 1988, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 225-56.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1903.182a-b.
• Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2012, website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk (G.410).

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 339).

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.