Titles

Several titles have been suggested:

• 'Variations in Pink and Gray' (1873, Dudley). 1
• 'Pink and Grey, Chelsea' (1892, Goupil). 2
• 'Variations in pink and grey - Chelsea' (n.d., Whistler). 3
• 'Gris et Rose, Chelsea' (1903, Sizeranne). 4
• 'Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea' (1980, YMSM). 5

The 1980 title 'Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea' is based on that written by Whistler, with punctuation amended for consistency with other titles.

Description

D. C. Thomson had described it as a Nocturne, and Whistler emphatically wrote that it 'is not a Nocturne!! but a little picture of Chelsea - with an almond tree in the foreground.' 6

It is a view of the a river, in vertical format. Men and women walk along a broad pavement in the foreground. At the edge of the water, at left, is a low stone wall, and at right, a high wooden fence, with young flowering trees planted along it. At left, below the wall, a man is working on a boat on the shore; several furled sails are seen in the centre, behind the wooden fence. On the river, at left, is a skiff with a man on it, and there are several small barges or lighters further away, in the middle and at right. In the distance, there are low buildings along the waterside, and the river curves from the right, up to the distant bend in the river at upper left.

Site

Chelsea Embankment by the river Thames, London. It shows Battersea Reach from Whistler's house in Lindsey Row, Chelsea, and was probably painted, as Curry suggests, from the second storey. 7