The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

This painting, which was recorded as unidentified in YMSM 1980 [more], can be identified with either Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Bognor y100 or Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge y140, and is included in those catalogue entries.

The two paintings shown in the Exposition Brown, Boudin, Caillebotte, Lepine, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Whistler, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1888 (cat. nos. 39 and 42) with the title Nocturne en bleu et argent can be identified by circumstantial evidence.

Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, Tate

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Bognor, Freer Gallery of Art

Firstly, Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Bognor y100, was lent by Alfred Chapman (1839-1917). ¹ Secondly, Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge y140 was referred to in a letter by Theodore Child (1846-1892), who needed illustrations for an article about Whistler. ² In that article, Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge y140 was reproduced as ‘Nocturne in Blue and Silver’; Whistler later re-titled it a ‘Nocturne in Blue and Gold’ for his 1892 exhibition at Goupil’s.

Images

History

Exhibitions

• 1888: Exposition Brown, Boudin, Caillebotte, Lepine, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Whistler, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1888 (cat. nos. 39 and 42) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Bognor, Freer Gallery of Art

Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, Tate

In addition to the two Nocturnes in Blue and Silver, Durand-Ruel also showed a Nocturne in Blue and Gold, that is, three blue Nocturnes in total. One was very likely Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Bognor y100, ³ or Nocturne: The Solent y071, and the other was almost certainly Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge y140.

The writer for the Chronique des arts et de la curiosité pointed out the ‘fluidité’ (meaning both fluidity and fluency) of the nocturnes. ⁴ Albert Michel described them as ‘barely a scumble of colour and of imperceptible nuances’ (‘à peine un frottis de couleur et des nuances insaisissables’). ⁵

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. 149) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Exposition: Brown, Boudin, Caillebotte, Lépine, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Whistler, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1888 (cat. no. 39 or 42) as ‘Nocturne en bleu et argent’.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., ‘L’Exposition des Indépendants’, Le XIXe siècle, 30 May 1888, p. 2.
• ‘A. R.’, ‘Deux Expositions d’art indépendant’, Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, 16 June 1888, p. 181.
• Michel, Albert, ‘Impressions artistiques’, La Société nouvelle, vol. 4, 1888, pp. 554-64, at p. 561.