Provenance

• 1884/1886: bought from Messrs Dowdeswell by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934) ;
• 1902: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in June;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 898).

Exhibitions

• 1884: probably 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 6 or 10) as 'Violet and Red'.
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 137) as 'The Studio – Note in Pink and Purple'.

The critic of the Globe wrote, `Some even of the slightest sketches have, in an eminent degree, the charm of colour and suggestiveness. The water-colour, "Violet and Red", for instance, in which the forms of two ladies seated at a table are vaguely indicated.' 1

By the terms of Freer's will the work cannot be lent to another venue.