Titles

Whistler's original title is not known, although he may have given it the current site and time specific title:

• 'The Morning after the Revolution – Valparaiso' (1936, University of Glasgow). 1 ?
• 'The Morning after the Revolution, Valparaiso' (1980, YMSM). 2

'The Morning after the Revolution, Valparaiso' is the definitive title.

Description

A vertical composition, showing the view from an upper window down onto a pier and across a bay to distant hills. The pier crosses the lower left corner diagonally. There are groups of people on the pier and a small sailing boat moored by the pier, and several small rowboats moored in the bay to the right of the pier. In the bay are at least six two- and three-masted sailing ships, sails furled, and flags fluttering. The sky is a pale greenish blue with a streak of lilac cloud, the sea a slightly darker blue, the hills beyond the bay are brown and the pier a pale ochre. The sails and rowboats are white, and the white flags are touched with red and blue.

Site

The port of Valparaiso, Chile. Whistler's paintings, according to Sutherland, 'are among the few visual records of the Spanish blockade, apparently the only eyewitness views.' 3