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

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YMSM 276
Blue and Gold: The Schooner

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1883/1884
Collection: Private Collection
Accession Number: none
Medium: oil
Support: wood
Size: 89 x 152 mm (3 1/2 x 6")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none

Blue and Gold: The Schooner

Titles

Suggested titles are as follows:

  • 'Blue and gold – The Schooner' (1884, Dowdeswell). 1
  • '… Gold - / the Sloop' (1890s, Whistler). 2
  • 'The Sloop' (1891, Whistler). 3
  • 'Vert et Argent, la chaloupe' (1891, Whistler). 4
  • 'Green & Gold, The Sloop' (1897, Whistler). 5
  • 'The Sloop' (1904, Miss A. B. Jennings). 6
  • 'The Schooner' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). 7
  • 'The Sloop' (1905, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). 8
  • 'Blue and Gold: The Schooner' (1980, YMSM). 9

Despite the variations in title, it appears that Blue and Gold: The Schooner [YMSM 276] and Green and Gold: The Sloop [YMSM 368] (which was also exhibited as 'Vert et Argent, la chaloupe') are the same painting. A 'chaloupe' is a boat or launch; a sloop is a small boat with a single mast, and a single head sail or jib; and a schooner is a sailing ship with two or more masts fore and aft rigged throughout; topsail and staysail schooners show slight variations in rigging.

Blue and Gold: The Schooner does appear to show a schooner and this is the original and preferred title.

Description

Blue and Gold: The Schooner, Private Collection
Blue and Gold: The Schooner, Private Collection

A two-masted boat is seen at left, sitting high up, beyond a sloping grassy field. To right of it are the roofs of several houses and huts, possibly smoke-houses. The sky is cloudy, with patches of pale blue. In the right foreground stand three women.

Site

Note in Blue and Opal: The Sun Cloud, Freer Gallery of Art
Note in Blue and Opal: The Sun Cloud, Freer Gallery of Art
Blue and Gold: The Schooner, Private Collection
Blue and Gold: The Schooner, Private Collection

Probably St Ives, Cornwall. Note in Blue and Opal: The Sun Cloud [YMSM 271] shows a similar row of small houses above a field, but without the ship.

Silvery Light, Photograph, 'Silvery Light Sailing'
Silvery Light, Photograph, 'Silvery Light Sailing'

Ships built on the shore at St Ives included the two-masted fishing boat Silvery Light built by William Robert Williams and launched on 10 July 1884. 10

Notes:

1: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 32); also Annual Exhibition of Sketches, Pictures & Photography: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Mr Whistler ..., Dublin Sketching Club, Dublin, 1884 (cat. no. 252).

2: Partial torn label in Whistler's hand, signed with a a butterfly, originally on verso of frame.

3: List, [22 August 1891], GUW #13237.

4: Translated as 'green and silver, the boat'. A 'chaloupe' is a boat, usually a launch or long-boat. Whistler to D. C. Thomson, [24/30 September 1891], GUW #08197; and #08199.

5: [19-29 May 1897], GUW #13034.

6: Inscription written on a label for the exhibition Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904.

7: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 77).

8: 100th Anniversary Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1905 (cat. no. 423).

9: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 276).

10: Website at ' https://www.silverylight.org/history'.

Last updated: 15th April 2022 by Margaret