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

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Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea

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


                    Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea, Freer Gallery of Art
Variations in Pink and Grey: Chelsea, Freer Gallery of Art

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

Notes:

1: 7th Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil, Dudley Gallery, London, 1873 (cat. no. 193).

2: Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 27).

3: Written on verso of frame.

4: Sizeranne 1903 [more] .

5: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 105).

6: 28 February 1892, GUW #08213.

7: Curry 1984 [more] , p. 121, plate 24.

Last updated: 16th December 2020 by Margaret