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

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M.0935
Note in pink and purple

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1883/1884
Collection: Cincinnati Art Museum, OH
Accession Number: n/a
Medium: watercolour
Support: white laid paper originally laid down on board
Size: 9 3/4 x 6 1/4" (248 x 158 mm)
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: v.: on board, 'N 27G / No l5G / Milly Finch' in unknown hands

Note in pink and purple

Provenance

  • 1884: according to Messrs Dowdeswell, bought on 2 December by Mary H. Sartoris (b. ca 1846), collector, wife of C. U. Sartoris, of 12 Chesham Place, London, SW, or by Edward John Poole (b. ca 1848), 2 Sussex Gardens, London, but possibly not actually sold; 1
  • 1885/1903: acquired by Otto Goldschmidt (1829-1907) , probably from Whistler;
  • 1907: passed to Otto Goldschmidt's estate;
  • 1912: on 1 December 'Portrait of a girl' was bought from Mrs B. M. Goldschmidt (fl. 1913) by Colnaghi, London dealers (#A876); 2
  • 1913: on 9 November Knoedler's, London and New York dealers, took joint ownership (#5743 WC931);
  • 1914: possibly sold in April to 'Otto Goldschmidt', who may have been Walter Otto Goldschmidt (b. 1853), son of the original owner. 3
  • 1928: sold on 1 October as 'Fannie' by Harlow, Macdonald & Co, New York, jointly with Knoedler's (#WCA73) to Miss Mary Hanna (1860-1956), art collector, patron and philanthropist, Cincinnati;
  • 1956: bequeathed to the Cincinnati Art Museum.

There are several gaps and problems in establishing ownership. See further details in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 935); this record has been revised.

Exhibitions

  • 1884: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 27) as 'Note in pink and purple'.
  • 1889: “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. 15) as 'Pink and Violet'.

Short reviews appeared in the Topical Times, 24 May 1884, and Fun, 4 June 1884.

It was priced at 45 guineas in 1889, but remained unsold, and was returned to Whistler after the exhibition by Wunderlich's on the SS Servia. 4

Notes:

1: Dowdeswell's to Whistler, [July 1885/1886], GUW #00867: the firm seems unclear about which painting was sold and to whom.

2: Mrs B. Max Goldschmidt has not been identified. Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt was born in Hamburg, Germany, and his parents were Johanna and Moritz David Goldschmidt. Otto's younger brother Benedict Moses (or Moritz) Goldschmidt (1831-1906) married Pauline Jacobsen (1836-1901) in Frankfurt in 1859 (thus both were dead by 1912); their daughters (1863-1929) and Klara (1864-1916) lived in Frankfurt. Otto M. D. Goldschmidt also had a brother, Enrique Goldschmidt, who was working in Berlin in 1891, and occasionally handled Whistler's works for his brother. There may well have been another Mrs, Madame or Frau Goldschmidt. The genealogical records appear confusing. The first owner, Otto M. D. Goldschmidt, and his wife Johanna Maria 'Jenny' Lind had several children, including Walter Otto (b. 1853), Jenny Maria Catherine (Mrs Maude, 1857-1935) and Ernst Svend David (1861-1947). W. O. Goldschmidt married Mary Julia Daniels in 1884 (divorced in 1893), and Agnes Gilchrist Dunn in 1918; he probably died in 1929 (the National Portrait Gallery records him as dying in 1884). E. S. D. Goldschmidt married Helen Wallace (ca 1874-1947) in 1911. None match the name recorded by Colnaghi's.

3: This sales record may have been incorrect.

4: G. Dieterlen, H. Wunderlich & Co., to Whistler, 1 November 1889, GUW #07187.

Last updated: 2nd April 2021 by Margaret