The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne: Chelsea dates from about 1881.

Nocturne: Chelsea, The Hunterian

The drawing is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 860).

Images

Subject

Site

Nocturne: Chelsea, The Hunterian

A public house (tavern) in Chelsea, London. It was drawn from memory, according to Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), who himself made a memory sketch of the oil painting that Whistler developed from the drawing. ¹

Technique

Composition

Nocturne: Chelsea, The Hunterian

Nocturne: Black and Gold: Rag Shop, Chelsea, Fogg Art Museum

This drawing, done from memory, formed the basis for an oil painting, according to Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913). ² The painting has not been located, but may have resembled Nocturne: Black and Gold - Rag Shop, Chelsea y204.

Technique

According to T. R. Way,

'We had left the studio when it was quite dusk, and were walking along the road by the garden of Chelsea Hospital, when he suddenly stopped, and pointing to a group of buildings in the distance, an old public-house at the corner of a road, with windows and shops showing golden lights through the gathering mist of twilight, said, "Look!" As he did not seem to have anything to sketch or make notes on, I offered him my note-book; "No, no, be quiet," was the answer; and after a long pause he turned and walked back a few yards; then, with his back to the scene at which I was looking, he said, "Now, see if I have learned it," and repeated a full description of the scene.' ³

History

Provenance

• 1881: probably given to Whistler's sister-in-law, Helen ('Nellie') Euphrosyne Whistler (1849-1917), in whose collection it was seen by T. R. Way;
• 1917: after her death, passed by family descent to Whistler's great-nephew, Joseph Whistler Revillon (1886-1955);
• 1955: bequeathed by J. W. Revillon to the University of Glasgow.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 860).

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 860) as 'Nocturne: Chelsea'.

Books on Whistler

• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 67-68, repr. f.p. 68.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk.