The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Blue and Silver - The Choppy Channel dates from 1893/1897.

Blue and Silver - The Choppy Channel, Freer Gallery of Art

It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1367).

Images

Subject

Site

Blue and Silver - The Choppy Channel, Freer Gallery of Art

Not identified. There appear to be spots of water from spray, and it seems that this may have been painted at sea.

Technique

Technique

A wash of pale grey covers most of the sky, leaving an uneven line of white for the wave tops along the horizon. Strokes of prussian blue, pale emerald green and grey summarise stormy water under grey clouds. Colours were scumbled over the rough surface. The cool silvery grey of the sky contrasts with the glittery scumbled waves. Each colour is separate, and the overlapping multi-facetted strokes, following the complicated pattern of wave on wave, produce a prismatic effect.

See technical details in Whistler in Watercolour, Freer|Sackler, Washington, 2019, website.

Conservation History

It is on a heavy weight paper, almost certainly wove, with a rough grain, slightly browned within the mount.

History

Provenance

• 1898: with Goupil, London art dealers;
• 1899: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, 1 August 1899;
• 1919: bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Exhibitions

• 1898: Pictures, Drawings, Bronzes, Pottery, Antique Furniture, Decorative Metal Work, &c, Goupil Gallery, at Howard Gallery, Sheffield, 1898 (cat. no. 53) as 'Blue and Silver – "The Choppy Channel" '.
• 1901: Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901 (cat. no. 97) as 'Blue and Silver – The Chopping Channel'.
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 99) as 'Blue and Silver – The Chopping Channel'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1367) as 'Blue and Silver – The Choppy Channel'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Pictures, Drawings, Bronzes, Pottery, Antique Furniture, Decorative Metal Work, &c, Goupil Gallery, at Howard Gallery, Sheffield, 1898 (cat. no. 53) as 'Blue and Silver – "The Choppy Channel" '.
• Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901 (cat. no. 97) as 'Blue and Silver – The Chopping Channel'.
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 99) as 'Blue and Silver – The Chopping Channel'.

Books on Whistler

• Glazer, Lee, Emily Jacobson, Blythe McCarthy, and Katherine Roeder, Whistler in Watercolor: Lovely Little Games, New Haven and London, 2019.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, p. 204, pl. 135.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1899.24a-b, as 'Blue and Silver–Choppy Channel'.
• Whistler in Watercolour, Freer|Sackler, Washington, 2019, website.