The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Old Battersea Bridge is a study for The Broad Bridge c011, which was published in Piccadilly on 4 July 1878.

Old Battersea Bridge, Private Collection

The drawing is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 700). The provenance has been revised.

Images

Subject

Site

Old Battersea Bridge, Private Collection

Old Battersea Bridge on the river Thames, London. The suspension bridge seen beyond old Battersea Bridge is the new Albert Bridge; the tower is that of Chelsea Church, taken from on or near the bank

Technique

Composition

Old Battersea Bridge, Private Collection

The Broad Bridge, from Picadilly, The Art Institute, Chicago (1917.543)

This is a study for the lithograph The Broad Bridge c011.

Technique

The lithographer, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) said when Whistler was asked to draw two lithographs for the new magazine Piccadilly in 1878,

"he forthwith made two studies of Old Battersea Bridge on brown paper, and brought them to the Wellington Street office, and there and then drew them on a fresh stone. `The long Bridge' and `The Tall Bridge' were at once printed". ¹

History

Provenance

• By 1905: owned by Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt (1871-1942), Kendal, Cumbria;
• 1919: possibly sold with The Tall Bridge m0701 at Sotheby's, London, 27 May 1919 (lot 169) as 'pencil' (sic) studies for Lithographic reproduction, together with impressions of the lithographs, and bought by Colnaghi, London dealers;
• 1920: possibly sold by Colnaghi's as "Study for the etching 'Putney Bridge' '' to Arthur H. Hahlo (fl. 1912-1919), New York, 19 April 1920.
• Date unknown: owned by Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935);
• 1935: 'A study for Lithotint [of Battersea Bridge]' passed to his widow, Katherine Geddes Benedict (1879-1961), and daughter, Josephine Katherine Benedict, Mrs James Douglass Sharpe (ca 1918-1946);
• 1962: sold at auction, Sotheby's, London, 21 November 1962 (lot 65) and bought by Julius H. Weitzner (1896-1986), London dealer.
• Date unknown: bought from A. H. Hahlo & Co., New York dealers, by Davis & Long, New York dealers;
• Before 1984: bought by Carter Burden, Jr (1941-1996) who gave it to his father, Shirley Carter Burden, Sr (1908-1989), New York;
• 1989: estate of Shirley Carter Burden, Sr.

The early and recent history of both Old Battersea Bridge m0700 and The Tall Bridge m0701 is difficult to disentangle.

See further details in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 700).

Exhibitions

• 1905: 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. 206) as 'Old Battersea Bridge'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 700) as 'Old Battersea Bridge'.
• Spink, Nesta R., Harriet K. Stratis, and Martha Tedeschi, The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, (gen. eds, Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi), 2 vols., Chicago, 1998 (lithograph, cat. no. 11).

Authored by Whistler

• Piccadilly, no. 8, 4 July 1878, lithograph, The Broad Bridge.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 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. 206) as 'Old Battersea Bridge'.

Books on Whistler

• Way, Thomas Robert, Mr Whistler's Lithographs: the Catalogue, London, 1896 (cat. no. 8) as 'The Broad Bridge'.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, p. 19.