Provenance

• 1879: Thomas Way (1837-1915), London;
• 1879/1896: given to his son, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London;
• 1903: with Messrs Agnew, London art dealers.
• ca 1905-1910: Alexander Arnold Hannay (1858-1927), London.
• 1912: bought from Percy Moore Turner (1877-1950), London, by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as a purchase from the Kennedy Fund.

In November 1877 Whistler offered 'two Cremornes' to Alfred Chapman (1839-1917) for £80, and Chapman agreed to purchase one, Cremorne [YMSM 168], which was either sold or delivered to him by Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890) in November 1877. 1 Unfortunately it is not certain what these were.

According to T. R. Way, Cremorne Gardens, No. 2 [YMSM 164] was 'more or less destroyed' by Whistler at the time of his bankruptcy, and was bought by his father, the lithographic printer Thomas Way, from the auctioneers (who had rejected it as unsaleable) before the White House sale of 1879. 2 It was given by him to T. R. Way and hung in his rooms, where it was seen in about 1896 by Whistler, who tried to repossess it because, according to Way, Whistler 'probably knew where he could place [it] at a big price.' 3

Thomas Way's retention of this painting was, according to his son, T. R. Way, a contributory factor in the rupture between Whistler and his father in 1896. Way quotes Whistler saying 'You see I have never had any consideration for the picture', as justification for wanting it returned to him. 4 It is not entirely clear when Way sold it.

Whistler died in 1903, and in that year Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) noted that the painting was with Messrs Agnew, London dealers. 5 In 1909 Freer said that it was being offered for sale through F. C. Yardley (dates unknown), 4 Leinster Avenue, East Sheen, London SW. 6

However, according to the Pennells, it was sold by Way to 'A. H. Hannay' (sic) 'a few years after Whistler's death' for £1200. 7 It was certainly still at A. A. Hannay's house in Albemarle Street, London in 1910, and was under offer to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in August and September of that year for £4000. Joseph Pennell (1860-1926) advised the gallery that although it was 'a good and beautiful example of Whistler's art' the price was too high. 8 It was bought from a London art dealer, Percy M. Turner, by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as a purchase from the Kennedy Fund in 1912.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 25) as 'Cremorne Gardens, No. 2'.

B. Sickert was probably wrong in thinking that this painting was exhibited at the RBA in 1887 (see Cremorne, No. 1 [YMSM 163]), and Laughton in suggesting that it was exhibited in Brussels in 1888, since Way, who owned Cremorne Gardens, No. 2 [YMSM 164], writes that Whistler did not know its whereabouts until 1896. 9