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

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YMSM 382
Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1893
Collection: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Accession Number: 1943.178
Medium: oil
Support: wood
Size: 130 x 215 mm (5 1/8 x 8 1/2")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: none
Frame: Grau-style, American, M. Grieve, 1930/1940s

Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec

Titles

Several variations on the title have been suggested:

  • ' "Bathers" – Blue & Silver' (1895, Whistler). 1
  • 'Violet et bleu. Les petits baigneurs; Perosquerie' [sic] (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). 2
  • 'Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Pérosquérié' [sic] (1980, YMSM). 3
  • 'Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec' (2020, WPP).

The name of the town has now been corrected, from Pérosquérié to Perros-Guirec, and 'Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec' is the preferred title.

Description

Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, Fogg Art Museum
Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, Fogg Art Museum

A beach scene in horizontal format. In the foreground are rocks, with a figure in a white shirt standing on them, and several bathers in the surf at the edge of the sea beyond. The horizon line is high, the sea pale turquoise blue by the shore, shading to deeper blue at the horizon.

Site

Perros-Guirec is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor (formerly Côtes-du-Nord) department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is a small fishing port and a popular seaside resort.

Notes:

1: Whistler to D. C. Thomson, 23 October 1895, GUW #08375.

2: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 77).

3: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 382).

Last updated: 22nd October 2020 by Margaret