Provenance

• 1891: acquired by John Chandler Bancroft (1835-1901);
• By 1904: owned by Harriet Burfort James Bancroft (Mrs J. C. Bancroft) (1846-1906);
• 1904: delivered to 'W. L. Putnam', 90 Ames Building, Boston – probably William Lowell Putnam (1861-1923);
• ca 1904: acquired by Sergei Shchukin (1854-1936), Moscow;
• 1918: the Shchukin collection was nationalised by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov alias Lenin (1870-1924);
• 1918: Silver and Blue: Southampton was transferred to the First Museum of New Foreign Painting, Moscow;
• 1923: transferred to the Museum of Modern Western Painting (Museum of New Western Art), Moscow;
• 1934: transferred to the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

Exhibitions

• 1888: probably III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1888 (cat. no. 32) as 'Blau und Silber: Southampton'.
• 1889: probably “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 21) as 'Silver and Blue – Southampton'.
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 94) as 'Blue and Silver'.

It was priced at a very modest 20 guineas in 1889, but remained unsold, and was returned to Whistler after the exhibition by Wunderlich's on the SS Servia. 1