The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne in Blue and Silver dates from 1871 or 1872. ¹

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum

It is dated from the technique and the form of the butterfly monogram on a cartouche at lower right. According to Whistler, speaking at the time of the Whistler v. Ruskin trial in 1878, he 'completed the mass of the picture in one day.' ²

It was given by Whistler to Frances Leyland (1834-1910) and was in the Leyland home at Speke Hall, near Liverpool, by November 1872. ³

Images

Subject

Titles

Several titles have been suggested:

• 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' (1877, Grosvenor). ⁴
• 'Nocturne - Blue & Silver' (1886/1887, Whistler). ⁵
• 'Nocturne Blue & Silver. Battersea Reach' (1892, Whistler). ⁶
• 'Blue & Silver ... Battersea Reach' (1892, Whistler). ⁷
• 'Nocturne. Blue and Silver' (1892, Goupil). ⁸
• 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver, No. I' (1908, Pennell). ⁹
• 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' (1980, YMSM). ¹⁰

'Nocturne in Blue and Silver' is the preferred title.

Description

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum

An evening scene in horizontal format, showing the view across a broad river. The river recedes into the distance at upper right. In the distance are warehouses, factory chimneys and spoil heaps, and one church spire. In the lower right foreground are a few green leaves.

Site

Grey and Silver: Old Battersea Reach, Art Institute of Chicago

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum

The River Thames in London, showing the Battersea shore from Lindsey Row in Chelsea, and including the slag heap of the plumbago works and the spire of Battersea Church, as seen in several other oils including, for instance, Grey and Silver: Old Battersea Reach y046.

Comments

Harvard Art Museums website comments:

'An American living in Britain, Whistler was among the most progressive artists in the West in the late nineteenth century. He believed that works of art should function as musical compositions, through evocation and suggestion rather than description. With its muted, blue-gray tones and diluted paints, Nocturne in Blue and Silver exemplifies the artist’s radically reductive style. Though the painting depicts an industrial section of the Thames, it is less a record of a place than an exploration of atmosphere, color, and tone.' ¹¹

Technique

Composition

Pentimenti of three inverted chimneys and a spire, upside down at lower left, suggest that Whistler originally began the picture with the canvas the other way up.

Technique

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum

According to Whistler, speaking at the time of the Whistler v. Ruskin trial in 1878, he 'completed the mass of the picture in one day.' ¹² The New York Semi-Weekly Tribune reported Whistler as saying 'he began and completed [it] in a day, after having arranged the thing in his mind.' ¹³

It is thinly painted on a cradled wooden panel. The Harvard website comments, 'With its muted, blue-gray tones and diluted paints, Nocturne in Blue and Silver exemplifies the artist’s radically reductive style.' ¹⁴

On the water and sky, the brushstrokes sweep from left to right, across the width of the canvas. The factory chimneys were painted over the sky, but the silhouettes of the factories and warehouses on the horizon were redefined in places. The leaves in the foreground were painted with very thin, almost translucent strokes of a pointed brush.

An illuminating exhibition and catalogue by Marc Simpson explored the technical skills used by Whistler to paint his Nocturnes, with this Nocturne cited as an example of the artist's early style, when the brushstrokes are clearly visible, compared to the extremely soft, blurred surfaces of a later Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151. ¹⁵

Conservation History

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, photograph, 1980

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum

Photographs suggest the painting has not suffered any serious damage or deterioration.

Frame

By 1872: the painting probably had a frame similar to that on Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103 decorated with the painted seigaiha.

1878: At the Grosvenor Gallery, the art critic of the Morning Post wondered whether the titles of paintings referred to the frames: 'The fancy subjects are equally puzzling. What is meant by a Nocturne in black and gold? (4), and what by a Nocturne in blue and silver? (5). One of these things has a silver frame, the other a gold one.' ¹⁶

According to Frances Leyland (1834-1910), quoted by Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936), on 26 October 1903:

'It was her nocturne that was brought into court in the place of Mrs. Wyndham’s, which she insists was the one Ruskin wrote about. Mrs. Wyndham was away, and hers was sent down from Speke Hall, and she was furious because it was taken into court without the frame, and the frame was painted by Whistler – with blue waves, carrying out and completing the design. It got so battered afterwards she had it gilded over.' ¹⁷

This suggests that the original frame was re-gilded some time after 1878.

1892: The painting probably received a new frame made by Frederick Henry Grau (1859-1892) during preparations for the Goupil Gallery exhibition, when Whistler instructed the manager, D. C. Thomson:

‘Mrs Leyland – Get her Nocturne so that no time may be lost – for cleaning varnishing & framing. My man Grau to frame & glaze it without referring the matter to Mrs L - Indeed in several cases I shall have frames made on my own account - taking them off afterwards.’ ¹⁸

Thus Mrs Leyland’s picture was probably reframed in a reeded Grau frame, but it is not known if the original frame was replaced following the exhibition.

1910-1930: It is not known how the painting was framed after Mrs Leyland's death, when it went into American collections.

ca 1930: It is currently surrounded by a Grau-style frame made by M. Grieve of New York City about 1930, which bears the label of the Grieve Company. [FD] 25 ½ x 32 (64.7 x 81.2), [MW] 4 ¼ (10.8).

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, photograph, 1970s

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Fogg Art Museum

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, frame detail

Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943) bequeathed his Whistlers to the Fogg Art Museum in 1943. It appears that in preparation for his bequest, or following their accession to the museum, these paintings were given identical replica Grieve-made frames.

History

Provenance

• Before 1872: given by the artist to Frances Leyland (1834-1910), London and Liverpool;
• 1910: passed to the Estate of Mrs Leyland.
• 1921/1937: acquired at some time by Hunt Henderson (1869-1939), New Orleans;
• 1939: bequeathed to Tulane University, New Orleans;
• 1941: sold by Tulane through the Macdonald Gallery, New York, to Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), New York, April 1941;
• 1943: bequeathed by Winthrop to Harvard University.

It was presented by Whistler to Mrs Leyland at some time between 1871 and 1872, and was certainly at Speke Hall, near Liverpool, by November 1872. ¹⁹ Some notes and affidavits at the time of the Whistler v. Ruskin trial stress that it was a gift, and was not for sale in the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition of 1877, where Whistler's exhibits were targeted by John Ruskin (1819-1900). ²⁰

A note by Whistler's attorney regarding the 1877 exhibition of this painting at the Grosvenor Gallery, and made in preparation for the Whistler v. Ruskin trial in 1878, states that it 'Belongs to Mrs Leyland 49 Princes Gate Hyde Park' and, in another note, that it is 'in the poss[essi] of Mrs Leyland 44 Princes Gate Hyde Park.' ²¹ However, they appear to have decided not to mention Mrs Leyland at the trial. A statement intended to be sent to Ruskin's solicitors (but not necessarily sent) stated that 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver ... Is the property and in the hands of Mr Leyland who purchased it from Mr Whistler at the price of 200 guineas.' ²² It is just possible that this was said to justify the price asked for the painting under contention in the trial, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket y170. If so, this was corrected in other statements.

In court the owner was named as Frances's husband, Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892). Whistler stated that the painting had been 'presented to Mr Leyland (blue & silver)', and he explained the meaning of the word 'Nocturne' as 'An Arrangement of line form and color.' ²³ A transcript of the statements of witnesses on Whistler's behalf included references to this Nocturne in Blue and Silver. William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919), examined by John Humffrey Parry (1824-1880), stated, 'I consider Mr Leyland's picture a very artistic & beautiful representation of the pale blue moonlight', and William Gorman Wills (1828-1891) affirmed:

'I have seen the two blue & silver, I thought there was a considerable charm about them - a great knowledge of art - I saw than at the exhibition in 1877 - nature, age, & feeling for color … I believe them to be the work of a man of art and a genius.' ²⁴

The painting was in Mrs Leyland's hands after her husband's death, and probably until her death in 1910: in 1921 the Pennells recorded it as in her estate. ²⁵ It not known when it was sold, but it was definitely in the Henderson family by 1937, when it was shown in the Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, courtesy of the Henderson Family of New Orleans, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge.

Exhibitions

• 1872/1876: Possibly exhibited in [Exposition], Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1873 or Mr Whistler's Exhibition, Flemish Gallery, 48 Pall Mall, London, 1874.
• 1877: I Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1877 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver'.
• 1892: Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 9) as 'Nocturne. Blue and Silver'.

1872/1876: In November 1872, Whistler asked Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892) if he could send the 'Nocturne', which was then at Speke Hall, to him in London, and at the same time thanked Leyland for suggesting the title 'nocturne':

'I want much to borrow Mrs. Leylands little "Nocturne." She says that she has no objection - so if you would kindly let John pack it in the case I took it to Speke in, and send it to me I should be very much obliged - with apologies for the trouble -

I say I can't thank you too much for the name "Nocturne" as a title for my moonlights! You have no idea what an irritation it proves to the critics and consequent pleasure to me - besides it is really so charming and does so poetically say all I want to say and no more than I wish! The pictures at the Dudley are a great success - The Nocturne in blue and silver is one you dont know at all.' ²⁶

It is possible that Whistler wanted it for an exhibition in London or Paris at that time or early in 1873, but if so, it has not been identified with certainty.

Notes made by Whistler's attorney in preparation for the Whistler v. Ruskin trial show a certain amount of uncertainty about the exhibition history of this painting before it was exhibited in 1877. One such note reads '… believe[d] to have been exhibited at No [blank] Piccadilly & at Dudley Gallery', while a more specific affidavit states that it was 'at no. 48 Pall Mall in Piccadilly in 1874' and 'exhibited by me at the Dudley Gallery in 1876'. ²⁷

1877-1878: When it was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, The Scotsman art critic, while rather dismissive of the portraits shown by Whistler, admired the nocturnes:

'Familiar, but none the less welcome, are J. Whistler's studies of colour and tone – nocturnes as he pleases to call them – in black and gold or blue and silver. Let not the oddity of the titles blind anyone to the charm of that luminous evening effect in which the whole field of view is occupied with delicate gradations of blue, or that still more impressive twilight over a vista of broad river, with lights glimmering here and there along the banks. More liable to be misunderstood are three portrait subjects which, we presume, can only be appreciated when viewed, in accordance with the suggestion of their titles, as exercises in chromatics.' ²⁸

A particularly appreciative review was written by William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919):

'The Nocturne in Blue and Silver … ranks among the loveliest works of the painter's works of this class. The time appears to be earliest morning – the locality, the river as seen from Chelsea: a great reach and surface of water as conveyed to the eye by a sort of artistic divination, a curious power of intuition and suggestion working through means equally simple and subtle: right in front come a few flecked leaves of a shrub, which even a Japanese artist, unapproachable in such suddennesses of perfection, might be willing to acknowledge.' ²⁹

The painting was presented in court as evidence in the trial for libel which Whistler brought against John Ruskin in November 1878. ³⁰ According to the Pennells, Mrs Leyland 'was furious because it was taken into court without the frame.' ³¹

1892: For the entry in his Goupil catalogue, Whistler quoted an old review from Society, 'It seems to us a pity that an artist of Mr. Whistler's known ability should exhibit such an extraordinary collection of pictile nightmares.' He followed this with an excerpt from the interrogation of Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898) at the Whistler v. Ruskin trial of 1878, referring to the price of Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket y170. Burne Jones had said that he considered The Falling Rocket a 'work of art' but the price too high, 'when you think of the amount of earnest work done for a smaller sum.' ³²

After the retrospective exhibition, Nocturne in Blue and Silver y113 was selected for inclusion in the Goupil Album of photographs, but Whistler was not happy with the reproduction, 'Mrs Leylands Nocturne - might be clearer … perhaps you had better borrow the picture again - it is so very bright - The photograph gives no true rendering of it.' ³³ However, this did not happen. Whistler also hoped to borrow the painting again, first, to exhibit in Paris, and then, in the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, but it was not shown in either venue. ³⁴

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 113), plate 107, as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver.

Authored by Whistler

• Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890, p. 8.
• Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 9).

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Possibly exhibited in [Exposition], Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1873 or Mr Whistler's Exhibition, Flemish Gallery, 48 Pall Mall, London, 1874.
• I Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1877 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver'.
• Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 9) as 'Nocturne. Blue and Silver'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Morning Post, London, 1 May 1877, p. 6.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 2 May 1877, p. 7.
• Taylor, Tom, 'The Grosvenor Gallery', The Graphic, London, 12 May 1877.
• Anon., New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, New York, 27 November 1878.

NOTE: See Merrill, Linda, A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in 'Whistler v. Ruskin', Washington and London, 1992 for a summary of accounts of the Whistler v. Ruskin trial in 1878.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Duret, Théodore, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1904, wood engraving repr. p. 59 (omitting butterfly and cartouche).
• Lechien, Isabelle Enaud, James Whistler: Le peintre et le polémiste, Paris, 1995, pp. 60-65, repr. p. 63.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, and Patricia de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 8.
• Merrill, Linda, A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in 'Whistler v. Ruskin', Washington and London, 1992, pp. 36, 108, 126, 142-43, 151-52, 160, 172-73, 177, 233, 360 n.16, 367 n.48, 368 n.49, 372 n. 6, repr. pl. 4.
• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 126, repr. fig. 3.9.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 211-12, 234, 239-40, repr. p. 236 as 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver, No. I'.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, p. 103, repr. f.p. 120.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 179, 181, 250.
• Prideaux, Tom, The World of Whistler, New York, 1970, p. 109.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (cat. no. 45), p. 156.
• Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, pp. 130, 138, repr. pl. 41.
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 78-79.
• 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, repr. vol. 1, p. 44, fig. 8.
• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, p. 60, repr. f.p. 60.
• Weintraub, Stanley, Whistler: A Biography, London, 1974, p. 143.

Books, General

• Casteras, Susan P., and Colleen Denney, The Grosvenor Gallery: A Palace of Art in Victorian England, New Haven, 1996, repr. fig. 52, p. 97.
• Colbert, Charles, Haunted Visions: Spiritualism and American Art, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2011, pp. 140-52, repr. p. 141, fig. 44.
• Newall, Christopher, The Grosvenor Gallery Exhibitions: Change and Continuity in the Victorian Art World, Cambridge, 1995, p. 135.
• Prettejohn, Elizabeth, Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 176-80.
• Wilmerding, John, Signs of the Artist: Signatures and Self-expression in American Paintings, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2003, p. 123, fig. 98.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Burgard, Timothy Anglin, American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 1994, pp. 4, 5, 11, fig. 4 (cat. no. 34).
• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard University Art Museums/Yale University Press, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 398-99 (cat. no. 429), repr. p. 399.
• Wolohojian, Stephan, ed., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 2008, repr. p. 162.

EXHIBITION:

• Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, courtesy of the Henderson Family of New Orleans, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, 1937.
• Rowland, Jr., Benjami, Real and Ideal in American Art, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, Summer 1948 (cat. no. 24).
• Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1972 (cat. no. 92).
• Jones, Caroline A., Modern Art at Harvard: The Formation of the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 1985, repr p. 54, fig. 46.
• Modern Art at Harvard, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 1985-1986.
• American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 1994.
• The Persistence of Memory: Continuity and Change in American Cultures, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 1995-2001.
• Chikashi Kitazaki (ed.), Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, National Museum of Western Art, Ueno, Japan, 2002, pp. 218-19 (cat. no. 68), repr.
• Riopelle, Christopher, Harvard's Winthrop Collection: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, National Gallery, London, 2003, p. 43 (cat. no. 30), repr.
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, p. 69, repr. fig. 60 (not exhibited).
• Wolohojian, Stephan, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir ... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 2003, pp. 482-83 (cat. no. 212), repr.
• A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 2003; National Gallery, London, 2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003-2004.
• For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 2004.
• Siewert, John, 'Art, music, and an aesthetics of place in Whistler's Nocturne paintings' in Lochnan, Katharine, Turner, Whistler, Monet, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Tate Britain, London, 2004-2005, pp. 141-47, at p. 142, repr. fig. 51 (not exhibited).
• Brock, Charles, Charles Sheeler: Across Media, National Gallery of Art/University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 2006, p. 15, fig. 7.
• Simpson, Marc, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 2008, pp. 4, 8-9, repr. p. 5.
• Dixon, Christine, Ron Radford, and Lucina Ward, Turner to Monet: The Triumph of Landscape Painting, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2008, p. 35, repr. fig 18.
• Re-View: Western Art from 1560 to 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, MA, 2008-2011.
• Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 2012-2013.
• 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 2014.

Journals 1906-Present

• Richardson, Edgar P., ' "Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket" by Whistler', The Art Quarterly, Winter 1947, pp. 2-11, repr. p. 11.
• Pyne, Kathleen, 'Whistler and the Politics of the Urban Picturesque', American Art, National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC, 1994, vol. 8, pp. 61-77, at p. 74, repr.
• Laurence, Madeline, 'L'art de se faire des ennemis', Beaux Arts Magazine, January 1995, pp. 50-51, repr. p. 50.
• Siewert, John, 'Suspended Spectacle: Whistler's Falling Rocket and the Nocturnal Subject', Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Institute of Arts Founders Society, Detroit, MI, 1995, vol. 69, nos. 1/2, pp. 37-48, p. 38.
• Tedeschi, Martha, 'Whistler and the English Print Market', Print Quarterly, London, March 1997, vol. 14, no. 1, p. 9.

Websites

• Harvard Art Museums website at http://www.harvardartmuseums.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 69) 'Nocturne, bleu et argent / Nocturne, blue and silve No:1 / Nocturne in blue and silver'.

Other

• None.