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

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YMSM 262
The Blue Band

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1884
Collection: Whereabouts Unknown
Accession Number: none
Medium: oil
Support: unknown
Size: unknown
Signature: unknown
Inscription: unknown
Frame: unknown

The Blue Band

Provenance

Unknown.

Exhibitions

  • Possibly 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 49) as 'Blue and orange: Sweet Shop'.

Menpes wrote that 'The Blue Band' was originally priced by Whistler at 45 guineas, but that enthusiasm engendered by gooseberry wine induced his friends to run this up to £120.0.0. 1

Blue and Orange: Sweet Shop, I. S. Gardner Museum
Blue and Orange: Sweet Shop, I. S. Gardner Museum

Menpes may have been wrong about identifying 'The Blue Band' as a fish shop. It could have been Blue and Orange: Sweet Shop [YMSM 263], which was priced at £50.0.0 by Messrs Dowdeswell until doubled to £100.0.0 by Whistler. 2

Notes:

1: Menpes 1903 C [more] , at p. 762.

2: Annotated catalogue, 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 49), GUL Whistler EC1886.

Last updated: 2nd October 2019 by Grischka