Provenance

• 1874: sold by Whistler to Alfred Chapman (1839-1917) .

On 22 June 1874 Whistler sold Chapman a ' "Nocturne in Grey & Silver"- (Battersea)' with Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Southampton Water [YMSM 117] for 200 guineas. 1

This might be Nocturne: Battersea [YMSM 120] or Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Battersea Reach [YMSM 152].

Several paintings at one time owned by Chapman have never been identified (see Blue and Gold: Channel [YMSM 159]).

Exhibitions

• 1892: Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 25) as '"Nocturne". Battersea Reach'.

Alfred Chapman lent several paintings to the Goupil exhibition, Nocturne: Grey and Gold - Chelsea Snow [YMSM 174], Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Southampton Water [YMSM 117], Blue and Gold: Channel [YMSM 159], Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Bognor [YMSM 100] and this one, Nocturne: Battersea Reach [YMSM 160], which has not been identified.

A review of another unidentified picture, (Blue and Brown - San Brelade's Bay [M.0856]) was used by Whistler to comment on Nocturne: Battersea Reach [YMSM 160] in the Goupil catalogue but does not help to identify it. The original review, dating from ten years earlier than the Goupil show, reads as follows:

'A few smears of colour, such as a painter might make in cleaning his paint brushes, and which, neither near at hand nor far off, neither from one side nor from the other, nor from in front, do more than vaguely suggest a shore and bay, was described as a Note in Blue and Brown ... One who found these pictures other than insults to his artistic sense could never be reached by reasoning.' 2