The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Sir Henry Cole, and a list of pictures dates from 1881. It is on the verso of the fragment of a letter - unrelated to the drawings - from H. Faraday & Son to Thomas Way (1837-1915) , dated 12 March 1881. ¹ According to Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), in 1881 Whistler saw 'Sir Henry Cole in a cab in evening dress, and was most keen to paint him', and soon afterwards, in the Way's Wellington Street office, made a drawing of Cole from memory, on a sheet of paper containing a list of his pictures. ²

The sheet includes a sketch of Henry Cole (1808-1882), who posed for Portrait of Sir Henry Cole y233, but died on 18 April 1882.

Sir Henry Cole, and a list of pictures, The Hunterian

This is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 839).

Images

Subject

Description

Sir Henry Cole, and a list of pictures, The Hunterian

The list that precedes the drawing of Sir Henry Cole reads as follows:

'1 The little White Girl - / { Blue Wave - / {1 Nocturne in blue & silver - /{1 Symphony in White No 3 - / {1 Harmony & [sic] Purple & gold - / {1 The Lange Lize [sic] of Six Marks / { The Mothers picture / { Miss Alexander / {1 Nocturne - / 1 Taking down the scaffolding of Old Westminster / 1 Harmony in flesh & green balcony / 1. Old Battersea Bridge - / Sea & Rain - Mere Gerard - Swinburne / Trouville - / Valparaiso - / Valparaiso Grey - Peter Brighton.' ³

Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Harmony in Green and Rose: The Music Room, Freer Gallery of Art

Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen, Freer Gallery of Art

Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz, Hill-Stead Museum

The text is surrounded by sketches of six pictures: Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks y047, Harmony in Green and Rose: The Music Room y034, Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen y060, possibly La Mère Gérard (1) y026, and finally Blue and Silver: Blue Wave, Biarritz y041. There is also a sketch of Sir Henry ('King') Cole (1808-1882), civil servant and museum director [more] who died on 18 April 1882.

Sitter

Portrait of Sir Henry Cole, Pennell 1911, repr. f.p. 204

Sir Henry Cole, C.B., , Victoria and Albert Museum E.207-2005

Henry Cole (1808-1882) posed for two portraits, neither of which has survived, Portrait of Sir Henry Cole y180 and Portrait of Sir Henry Cole y233.

Sidney Starr (1857-1925) described Cole senior, whom he saw posing for his portrait, as 'a man with a ruddy face and a white stubby beard'. ⁴ However, although Cole posed in evening dress, as in the drawing, the hat was left out in the painting.

Technique

Technique

Sir Henry Cole, and a list of pictures, The Hunterian

The memory sketch was drawn in the circumstances described by Way. It was drawn with the sheet leaning on a grained wood or stone which shows through the dark area of the background and the top hat.

Conservation History

The paper, a heavy weight paper, may originally have been cream, but is greatly discoloured.

History

Provenance

• 1881: owned by Thomas Way (1837-1915) and passed to his son, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London;
• ca 1913: acquired, possibly after T. R. Way's death, from his widow, by Pickford Robert Waller (1849-1930);
• 1930: bequeathed to his daughter Sybil Christina Waller (1882-1973);
• 1965: sold at auction, Christie's, London, 12 November 1965 (lot 36) as 'Sketches and Notes', and bought by Knoedler's, New York dealers;
• 1965: bought by Shirley Latter Schlesinger Kaufmann (Mrs Robert B. Kaufmann) (1916-2003);
• 1972: given, in exchange for lithographs, to the University of Glasgow.

Note: this document was not part of the Whistler estate.

For further details see MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 839).

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Although this list of paintings, which includes many major works such as Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother y101, may relate to a planned exhibition of Whistler's work, no such exhibition has been identified.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 839) as 'Sir Henry Cole, and a list of pictures'.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 302-03, 307.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 83-84, repr. f.p. 82 as 'A page giving a list by Whistler of his most important pictures'.

Catalogues 1906-Present

SALES:

• Christie's, London, 12 November 1965 (lot 36) as 'Sketches and Notes'.

Journals 1906-Present

• Starr, Sidney, 'Personal Recollections of Whistler', Atlantic Monthly, vol. 101, April 1908, pp. 528-37, at p. 532.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk.
• The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855-1903, edited by Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp. Online edition, University of Glasgow. GUW #13354.