Provenance

• 1876/1878: Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890);
• 1890: on his death, auctioned at his sale, Christie, London, 13 November 1890 (lot 435) as 'Selsey Shore'.
• 1894: sold by Messrs Dowdeswell, London, for £55 to Alfred Atmore Pope (1842-1913) of Cleveland, through Goupil, London dealers;
• 1913: bequeathed to A. A. Pope's daughter Theodate Pope (1867-1946) (Mrs J. W. Riddle), Farmington, Connecticut;
• 1946: bequeathed to the Hill-Stead Museum of American Art.

It was painted at Selsey Bill and left in C. A. Howell's house there. 1 At the Howell sale at Christie's on 13 November 1890 (lot 435) 'Selsey Shore', was bought for 7 guineas, possibly by Messrs Dowdeswell. It was Dowdeswell's who later sold what Whistler termed the 'wreckage' for £55 to A. A. Pope through Goupil's. In 1894 Goupil's sent this painting to Whistler for his signature, which he refused to give. 2

A note of about 1892 in Whistler's hand, was found pasted on the back of another picture, The Beach at Selsey Bill (now in the New Britain Museum of American Art). 3 The Beach at Selsey Bill, like The Selsey Shore [YMSM 200], was originally in the collection of A. A. Pope's daughter, Mrs Riddle. Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975) rejected the NBMAA picture as an autograph painting by Whistler, and suggested that the note in Whistler's hand once belonged to The Selsey Shore [YMSM 200]. The note reads:

This rag of canvas bought of Messrs. Dowdeswell "Beach at Selsie Bill" was never ment [sic] to be signed. It is no more fit for signature than would be the odd scrap of paper that had fallen between waste bucket and fire when thrown aside by the author, too careless to see the destruction he intended completed before him.

Nothing in the house of Howell was ever lost! and so this sweeping of an afternoon's visit was gathered and stowed away for future transaction. There would seem to be a fatality that brings wreckage of this kind to Messrs. Dowdeswell in Bond Street.' 4

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.