Titles

Suggested titles are as follows:

• 'Valparaiso Harbour' (1927, Royal Society of British Artists). 1
• 'Sketch for 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay' (1980, YMSM). 2
• 'Valparaiso Harbor' (2015, Smithsonian). 3

'Sketch for 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay' is the preferred title.

Description

Sketch for 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay', National Collection of Fine Arts

A view of a bay with hills in the background, in vertical format. Diagonally across the foreground below the viewer a pier or jetty stretches into the bay, with figures on it and small boats beside it. At the far right end of the pier is a small white sail. Several tall sailing ships are moored in the bay.

Site

The port of Valparaiso, Chile.

W. McQueen (dates unknown) told Pennell (1921) that 'his father was in Valparaiso when Whistler was there [in 1866], that he put Whistler up at his Club, and that it was from the Club windows that the beautiful upright Valparaiso was painted'. 4 Since that painting, Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay [YMSM 076], shows the same view, this must have been painted from the same spot.