The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne dates from between 1875 and 1878. ¹

Nocturne, The White House, Washington, DC

It is somewhat difficult to date, but is dated from its technique and in comparison to other Nocturnes of the period.

Images

Subject

Titles

Suggested titles are as follows:

• 'Nocturne' (1891, Whistler). ²
• 'Nocturne Grey & Gold. Battersea' (1892, Whistler). ³
• 'Nocturne Westminster' (1904/1905, C. L. Freer). ⁴
• 'Nocturne in Blue' (1945, Frick Art Reference Library). ⁵
• 'Nocturne' (1980, YMSM). ⁶

The title 'Nocturne' has been retained as preferable, since there is some doubt as to the site.

Description

Nocturne, The White House, Washington DC

A dark night scene, in horizontal format. Across a broad river are the shadowy outlines of buildings, some with lights reflecting in the river. To left of centre there is a building with a tall tower that has a light at the top, casting a long column of light across the water.

Site

The strange silhouette of the clocktower, or lighthouse, in the centre is unlike that in any other nocturne.

It has been suggested that it is Battersea, as seen across the Thames from Chelsea. One scholar wrote that the 'peculiar tower is probably "Morgan's Folly," a 100-foot clock tower built in 1862 ... The color in this mystery of blue and black shifts as we watch. ... This color abstraction ... astonishes the viewer with an illusion of moonglow-fog gliding over the water. The only fixed point is the exclamation mark tower and its tangible reflection.' ⁷

Technique

Technique

Nocturne, The White House, Washington DC

It is painted on a fairly coarse canvas.

In its smooth finish the painting is comparable to several other works, particularly Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151 and Nocturne: Grey and Silver y156. However, it has a more mechanical and less painterly finish than those paintings.

Conservation History

Nocturne, photograph, 1913/1914

Nocturne, photograph, 1972

Nocturne, The White House, Washington DC

In 1914, Knoedler's sent the portrait to C. L. Freer on approval, but it 'seemed so much less luminous than it did in 1905, I decided not to buy it.' ⁸

Old photographs of this painting suggest it may have been lighter in colour originally, and although this may have been partly the effect of the lighting or photographic process, it is possible that it has darkened and also that conservation has altered its original appearance.

Frame

Nocturne, frame, 1972

Grau-style frame, dating from after 1903.

History

Provenance

• Before 1892: Otto Goldschmidt (1829-1907);
• 1907: passed to his estate;
• 1913: recorded as sold by 'Mrs Goldschmidt' – possibly Mrs B. M. Goldschmidt (fl. 1913) – to Knoedler, New York art dealers;
• 1914: sold by Knoedler's to Mary Williamson Averell (Mrs E. H. Harriman) (1851-1932), New York, January 1914;
• 1932: bequeathed to her son, W. Averell Harriman (1891-1986);
• 1962: given by Mr and Mrs W. Averell Harriman to the White House, Washington, DC, in August 1962.

Otto Goldschmidt probably bought this painting in the 1880s; he knew Whistler by 1887, and certainly owned it before the early Spring of 1891 when Whistler mentioned the possibility of exhibiting it. ⁹ Some time later Whistler wrote to Goldschmidt:

'By the way I am so glad you have that "Nocturne". You know that its value now is certainly from 800 to a thousand guineas! - and it will only increase in worth - and you bought it from sympathy and liking when things were not so!' ¹⁰

Although it was not shown, it appears on one of Whistler's lists for his Goupil Gallery exhibition in 1892, where it is described as 'Nocturne Grey & Gold. Battersea.' ¹¹

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) of Detroit saw 'Nocturne Westminster' in Goldschmidt's house in Paris some time in 1904/1905 and thought it 'very fine.' ¹²

'Nocturne' was recorded as sold by 'Mme Goldschmidt' on 9 November 1913 to Knoedler, New York dealers. It had been assumed that the painting was bequeathed by Otto Goldschmidt to his widow, but his wife, Jenny Lind, pre-deceased him. Their children were Walter Otto (b. 1853), Jenny Maria Catherine (Mrs Maude, 1857-1935) and Ernst Svend David (1861-1947). Walter Otto Goldschmidt married Mary Julia Daniels in 1884 (divorced in 1893), and Agnes Gilchrist Dunn in 1918; he probably died in 1929. Ernst Svend David Goldschmidt (1861-1947) married Helen Wallace (Mrs E. S. D. Goldschmidt) (ca 1874-1947) in 1911: so she could have been the 'Mrs Goldschmidt' living in 1913.

However, Otto Goldschmidt senior also had a brother Enrique Goldschmidt (fl. 1891) who was working in Berlin in 1891, and occasionally handled Whistler's works for his brother. ¹³ There may well have been another Mrs, Madame or Frau Goldschmidt.

Yet another painting, Grey and Green: A River y295 was supposedly sold by Mrs B. M. Goldschmidt (fl. 1913) to Knoedler's in the same year, 2013, and although she has not been identified, she may have also sold Nocturne y153.

Exhibitions

• 1888/1891: Possibly III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1888 or IV. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung (Jahresausstellung der Künstler-Genossenschaft), Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1889 or Jahresausstellung der Künstler-Genossenschaft, Munich, 1891 or VI. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Königlicher Glaspalast, Munich, 1892.

A letter from the Frick Art Reference Library states that Mrs Harriman bought a Nocturne from 'Mrs Goldschmidt', and also states that the 'Goldschmidts' told Mrs Harriman that their Nocturne had been exhibited in Munich about 1888. ¹⁴

According to Otto Goldschmidt, his nocturne was 'a harmony of black and gold' exhibited in Munich and compared by Richard Muther (1860-1909) to a scene he witnessed from a steamer on the way to England. ¹⁵ The original passage by Muther reads:

'Das ruhige, dunkel Wasser, über das der Dampfer in regelmässigen Stossen glitt, verschmolz mit dem Blau des Himmels ... Da plötzlich rechts flammt zuckend das Licht eines Leuchtthurms ... Weiter hinten ein andere, feineres, dann noch eines, andere und wieder andere, ein ganze Allee von Lichtern – jedes von grossem blauen Dunstkreis umgeben. Und ganz hinten das Lichtermeer der fernen Stadt ... Und blickt man tiefer, so spiegelte sich im Wasser Alles noch einmal in tausend goldenen und silbernen Reflexen.' ¹⁶

Translation: 'The calm, dark water, over which the steamer glided in regular puffs, merged with the blue of the sky ... suddenly the light flickers to the right of a lighthouse ... Further on, another, smaller one, then another, others and again others, a whole avenue of lights – each surrounded by a blue haze. And at the very back, the sea of ​​lights of the distant city ... And if you look deeper, everything in the water is reflected once more in a thousand golden and silver reflections.'

Muther's description matches this painting in some points, though it interprets it as a coastline and lighthouse, rather than a Thames scene. However, it has not so far been possible to identify the painting with pictures known to have been exhibited in Munich.

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. 153), plate 87, as 'Nocturne'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, pp. 54-55.

Books, General

• Muther, Richard Geschichte der Malerei im XIX Jahrhundert, 3 vols, Munich, 1893-1894 ('Whistler und die Schotten', vol. 3, chap. 48, pp. 522-37), at pp. 522-23.
• Kloss, William, et al., Art in the White House: A Nation's Pride, Washington, DC, The White House Historical Association, 2008, p. 179.
• Whitcomb, John and Claire Whitcomb, Real Life at the White House: Two Hundred Years of Daily Life at America's Most Famous Residence, New York and London, 2000, p. 459.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Simpson, Marc, 'Whistler, Modernism, and the Creative Afflatus', in Simpson, Marc, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 2008, pp. 24-51, at 31-32, repr. p. 33.
• 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. 145, repr. fig. 54 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• Brumbaugh, Thomas Brendle, 'A Whistler Footnote', The Art Journal, vol. 31, no. 3, Spring 1972, p. 261.

Websites

• White House Historical Association website at http://www.whitehouseresearch.org (acc. 2019); and https://clintonwhitehouse2.archives.gov/WH/glimpse/art/html/landscapes3.html(ac(acc. 2020).

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 82) 'Nocturne in blue'.

Other

• Siewert, John, 'Whistler’s Nocturnes and the Aesthetic Subject', PhD thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994.