Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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YMSM 298
Violet and Silver: The Great Sea

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1884
Collection: Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Accession Number: F1902.148a-b
Medium: oil
Support: wood
Size: 13.8 x 23.5 cm (5 3/4 x 9 1/4")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: Large Dowdeswell, 1884 [14.1 cm]
print

Violet and Silver: The Great Sea

Titles

Several possible and radically dissimilar titles have been suggested:

  • 'Violet and silver. The Great Sea' (1884, Dowdeswell). 1
  • 'Bleu et argent: La grande Mer' (1887, Petit). 2
  • 'Green and Gold – the Great Sea' (1903, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). 3
  • 'Violet and Silver: The Great Sea' (1980, YMSM). 4

'Violet and Silver: The Great Sea' is the preferred title.

Description

Violet and Silver: The Great Sea, Freer Gallery of Art
Violet and Silver: The Great Sea, Freer Gallery of Art

A seascape in horizontal format. Breakers roll in over a deep blue-green sea to a sandy shore. Big grey clouds scurry across a pale blue sky.

Site

The view almost certainly shows Porthmeor Beach, the broadest and longest beach west of the harbour of St Ives, Cornwall. 5

Notes:

1: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 33).

2: Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887 (cat. no. 168).

3: Seventy-second Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1903 (cat. no. 5).

4: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat no. 298).

5: Robins 2007 [more], p. 13.

Last updated: 31st December 2020 by Margaret