Titles

Suggested titles include:

• ' "Golden Bay" – Ireland' (1903, Whistler). 1
• 'Gray & Gold – The Golden Bay' (1903, Whistler). 2
• 'Gray and Gold: The Golden Bay, Ireland' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). 3
• 'Grey and Gold: The Golden Bay, Ireland' (1980, YMSM). 4

With modified spelling and punctuation, 'Grey and Gold: The Golden Bay, Ireland' is the preferred title.

Description

A view across a bay, in horizontal format. Across the foreground is the curve of a shingle beach, with a few rocks, and in the distance, a low green promontory stretches across the horizon. The far side of the bay is nearly lost in warm-tinted shades of grey and deep turquoise. The sky is pale blue and turquoise with scattered clouds. The rays of the setting sun touch the ship and the clouds with a golden glow.

Site

Painted at Sutton, near Dublin, Ireland and probably listed as ‘Sea piece: Dublin Bay’ by Whistler’s sister-in-law, Miss R. Birnie Philip, in Whistler’s studio on 16 February 1901. 5

Walter Armstrong (1850-1918), then director of the National Gallery of Ireland, told the Pennells that Whistler took a house, ‘Craigie ... at Sutton, six miles from Dublin, on the spit of sand which connects the Hill of Howth with the mainland ... on the north side of Dublin Bay’; the Pennells mention that the visit was a failure: ‘The house was on the wrong side of the Bay, the weather was wretched.’ 6