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Titles
One title, with spelling and grammatical variations, has been suggested:
- 'St. Ives. La plage. – (St. Ives. The Beach.)' (1905, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts). 1
- 'St. Yves. [sic] The Beach' (1905, ISSPG). 2
- 'St Ives: The Beach' (1980, YMSM). 3
It is not certain whether the ISSPG's title 'St. Yves' was a typographical, geographical or iconographical error.
The preferred title is 'St Ives: The Beach'.
Description
St Ives: The Beach, Private Collection
A seascape in horizontal format, with waves breaking on a beach in the foreground, and a high horizon. There are rocks in the surf at left, two woman at right, and a man, seen from behind, standing at far right. The figures appear to be mending nets, and there are traces of a frame at right, from which a long sweep of rope and possibly nets cross the foreground in curving diagonal lines. The sky is cloudy, the sea grey, but the breaking wave is pale blue/green.
In 1905 a catalogue interpreted the small boy as a dog, describing it as: 'Marée basse. Trois petites figures à droite; près du centre, un chien; à gauche des roches plats.' The details are undoubtedly difficult to identify. 4
Site
The town of St Ives, a fishing port in Cornwall, south-west England. Whistler went there with Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) and Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938).
Notes:
1: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 78).
2: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 88).
3: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 267).
4: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 78).
Last updated: 1st January 2021 by Margaret
