The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Snow dates from Whistler's visit to Amsterdam in November/December 1882.

Snow, private collection

The technique and the butterfly signature help to confirm the date.

Images

Subject

Titles

Only one title is known:

• 'Snow' (1883, New York).

In the 1995 catalogue raisonné, Amsterdam in Winter m0877 was mistakenly identified as the painting exhibited in 1883.

Site

Snow, private collection

Whistler sat in the Café de Beurs, next to the gatefouse known as the Beurspoortje, looking out over the Rokin (a canal, which was later filled in) towards the building that housed the society Arti et Amicitiae. Heijbroek comments that the Café and the railing in the foreground were demolished in 1912, as was the Beurspoortje. ¹

Technique

Technique

Snow, private collection

The distant buildings and those at right are slightly blurred and misty, blending with the washes of the sky (where Whistler used opaque white as well as thin washes of warm greys). Details were painted with economical, expressive brushstrokes, with a fine pointed brush, leaving large areas of paper bare to convey the effect of snow. The active little figures walk with legs well apart, trying not to slip!

Conservation History

The edges of the paper, originally covered by the mount, are slightly browned.

History

Provenance

• 1883: on 1 August Wunderlich's, New York dealers, bought two watercolours, probably including this, from Whistler; ²
• 1883: lent by Wunderlich's to the Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1883 (cat. no. 194) in December;
• 1883: probably bought by the American collector, John Howard Whittemore (1837-1910), Naugatuck, CT;
• 1910-present: passed by family descent to a private collection, New York.

Exhibitions

• 1883: Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1883 (cat. no. 194) as 'Snow'.

It is of similar date to Amsterdam in Winter m0877 and it was originally thought that picture was the one exhibited in New York.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Not listed in MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995, although cat. no. 877, 'Amsterdam in Winter' was mistakenly recorded as having been exhibited as 'Snow'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1883 (cat. no. 194) as 'Snow'.

Books on Whistler

• Heijbroek, J. F., and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, Zwolle and Amsterdam, 1997, pp. 38, 53-54, repr. pp. 54, 94, cover.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Heijbroek, J. F., and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, Zwolle and Amsterdam, 1997 (no cat. number).