Technique

St Ives: The Beach, Private Collection

The panel has a shallow bevel on the verso; it may have been held by pins or clips at each side while being painted, because there are tiny indents at each side. The paint goes over the edge at the lower side.

The sky, beach, sea, and waves are painted with thin, fairly liquid paint, and the surf is indicated with wriggly brushstrokes of very slightly thicker paint. There are extensive signs of alterations, or of an earlier variation on the composition that is now partly painted over.

The women's figures are curiously stiff (there appears to be a faint standing woman in front of the two seated women; and it may be that the painting was revised by an unknown hand, at an early date, or that it was left by Whistler in a transitional state, or that the paint has become more translucent, leading to a lack of clarity in the composition.

There appear to be long curving strokes running diagonally across the lower right corner. The man at right may be working on nets supported on a sort of trestle (or perhaps the boom of a boat) at far right. It is hard to interpret the curving strokes, slightly rubbed, that sweep across parts of the surface, and the verticals that are visible through both the sea and sky. Other possible changes to the composition are indicated by traces of lines at left, where there may originally have been a boat. It is possible that originally the panel included several boats, or that Whistler painted over another picture entirely, or (and this is less likely) the panel was prepared with a thick crude underpaint.

Conservation History

As seen in 2019, the painting appears a little dirty, and the varnish cloudy, so that the figures appear faint and the waves, blurred. The panel is slightly bowed, and the paint is a little abraded at the edges by the frame. One area of abrasion is under the man at right. Small areas of paint loss at lower right and at the top have been inpainted.

Frame

The frame bears the label of Chapman Bros., 251 King's Road, London, SW.