Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Bognor may have been painted in 1874 or 1875 and completed in 1876. 1

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Bognor, Freer Gallery of Art

1874-1875: The butterfly signature suggests a date of 1874/1875, but is not a certain indication of the date of the picture. Whistler could perfectly well have visited Bognor on the south coast during this period, but no such visit is recorded.

1875: Whistler wrote from Speke Hall offering a painting to Cyril Flower (1843-1907) as well as to the London dealer Murray Marks (1840-1918). He wrote to Flower:

'Go round one morning to my place and look at a most lovely Nocturne in blue and silver … perhaps the most brilliant of the lot. I want 300 gs. for it … I am delighted with it myself and want to show it. … a large sea piece with some fishing smacks putting off - sky lovely and the sea of an immense distance and gleaming in the soft light of the moon … Go and see if ever you saw the sea painted like that! And the mystery of the whole thing - nothing apparently when you look at the canvas, but stand off … the wet sands and the water falling on the beach in the blue glimmering of the moon - and the sheen of the whole thing.' 2

It was presumably at the same time that Whistler wrote in similar terms to Murray Marks:

'You have several times said you would like to have a small picture of mine. Now here is a chance - There is a Nocturne in blue & silver just finished and at present in the drawing room at my place 2 Lindsey Houses - Chelsea …

It is a sea piece - large - and I think it one of my very finest, perhaps the most brilliant - Fishing smacks putting off - at night - Moonlight - I want 300 gs. for it.' 3

It is just possible, however, that Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Bognor was painted in Bognor when Whistler attended the opening of the Second Annual Exhibition of Modern Pictures in Oil and Water Colour, Royal Pavilion Gallery, Brighton, 1875, on 8 September, before going on to Speke Hall.

1876: On 19 February 1876 William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) reported Whistler as having 'lately completed three interesting studies of landscape', one of which was probably this oil. 4 The dating of this picture relies heavily on what Rossetti meant by 'lately completed': if Whistler was working on site, it seems more likely that the picture was painted in the summer of 1875, but it could have been completed and varnished in 1876.