The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

For Panels from the Entrance Hall at 49 Princes Gate date from 1876.

Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892) commissioned decorations for the hall in his London house at 49 Princes Gate.

The 2000 Survey of London gives extensive details of the development of Princes Gate, including No. 49, and the designs by Jeckyll and Whistler, describing the Whistler's designs for the hall as including 'a series of panels along the dado. Embellished with pink and white flowers on a background of dutch metal (imitation gold-leaf) under a lightly distressed green glaze, these were in progress in March 1876.' ¹

According to Alan Summerly Cole (1846-1934), he saw the 'successful' colouring of the hall on 24 March 1876. ² About this time Whistler also painted the panels of the dado up the staircase. He lived at Princes Gate through the summer. On 17 August 1876 Leyland sent Whistler £50, and suggested Whistler should wait to see how the gilding on the stairs would wear. ³

Images

Subject

Titles

The suggested title is:

• 'Four Panels from the Entrance Hall at 49 Princes Gate'. ⁴

Description

In 1890 Theodore Child (1846-1892) described the decorations on the staircase as, 'panels imitating aventurine lacquer, decorated with delicate sprigs of pale rose and white flowers in the Japanese taste.' ⁵

The panels are of varying semi-quadrilateral shapes, freely painted with intertwined flowers and leaves of convolvulus.

Site

Formerly installed in 49 Princes Gate, London.

Technique

Composition

Sketch for hallway of 49 Princes Gate, The Hunterian

There are two related pencil drawings Sketch for hallway of 49 Princes Gate m0577 and Designs for staircase for 49 Princes Gate m0578. The latter gives a very cursory indication of the curving convolvulus design.

Curry described Whistler as 'a traditional minded muralist painting realistic distances glimpsed through architectural elements that act as "windows" '. ⁶

Technique

The flowers are painted thinly, but freely, and indeed quite crudely. They may be partly by another hand or have been restored by another hand.

Conservation History

The panels were removed from 49 Princes Gate in 1904, and most were sent to C. L. Freer's house in Detroit, and later moved to the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC. It is not known what treatment was received by the panels before they were given to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Frame

The semi-asymmetrical painted area is slightly raised, and enclosed withing four-sided wood battens. They are not, now, framed.

History

Provenance

• 1876: commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892);
• 1892: after Leyland's death, 49 Princes Gate was auctioned by Osborn & Mercer, London, 17 June 1892 (withdrawn at £20,100).
• 1897: the house was bought by Mrs Blanche Marie Georgiana Watney (1837-1915), of the brewing family, who lived there until 1903;
• 1904: bought through Brown & Phillips, London dealers, by Messrs Obach, London dealers;
• 1904: most of the panels were bought from Obach's by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit.
• Date unknown: four panels were acquired by Leonard Raven-Hill (1867-1942);
• 1922: given to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In March 1892 the auctioneers Osborn and Mercer wrote to Whistler:

'We beg to inform you that we have received instructions from the Solicitors acting on behalf of the Executors of the late F. R. Leyland Esq. to dispose of that charming residence 49 Princes Gate which owes so much to your care attention and advice. Should you know of anyone requiring such a model of tasteful refinement we shall be much obliged if you will acquaint us when we will send descriptive particulars and the necessary card to view.' ⁷

In June 1904 Messrs Obach held an exhibition at 168 New Bond Street, London, The Peacock Room painted for Mr. F. R. Leland by James McNeil Whistler, removed in its entirety from the late owner's residence and exhibited at Messrs Obach's Galleries. C. L. Freer bought Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178 as well as most of the the staircase panels. SeePanels from the Entrance Hall at 49 Princes Gate y175. ⁸ Several panels from the hall remained in London, and are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Exhibitions

• 1904: The Peacock Room painted for Mr. F. R. Leland [sic] by James McNeil Whistler, removed in its entirety from the late owner's residence and exhibited at Messrs Obach's Galleries, 168 New Bond Street, London.

It is not known if the panels were exhibited at this time.

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. 175), plates 121-23, as 'Panels from the Entrance Hall at 49 Princes Gate'.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995(cat. no. 577).

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

SALE:

• Osborn & Mercer, London, 17 June 1892, staircase at 49 Princes Gate repr. f.p. 6.
• The Peacock Room painted for Mr. F. R. Leland [sic] by James McNeil Whistler, removed in its entirety from the late owner's residence and exhibited at Messrs Obach's Galleries, 168 New Bond Street, London, June 1904, p. 2.

Journals 1855-1905

• Child, Theodore, 'A Pre-Raphaelite Mansion', Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 82, December 1890, pp. 81-99, at p. 81.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Bendix, Deanna Marohn, Diabolical Designs: Paintings, Interiors, and Exhibitions of James McNeill Whistler, Washington and London, 1995, p. 120.
• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, pp. 178-83.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 203.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, drawing repr. f.p. 104.
• Way, Thomas Robert, and G. R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, 1st edition, London, 1903, pp. 101-02.

Books, General

• Banham, Joanna (ed.), Encyclopedia of Interior Design, London & Chicago, 2 vols., 1997.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 160-61, 296.
• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 13 (04.458-74).

EXHIBITION:

• Calloway, Stephen, and Lynn Federle Orr (eds), The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2011.

Journals 1906-Present

• Curry, David Park, ‘Total Control: Whistler at an Exhibition’, in: Ruth Fine (ed.), James McNeill Whistler: A Reexamination, Studies in the History of Art, vol. 19, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 67-82, at p. 74.

Websites

• Victoria and Albert Museum website at http://collections.vam.ac.uk.
• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://www.freersackler.si.edu.
• Greenacombe, John (ed.), 'Princes Gate and Princes Gardens: the Freake Estate, Development by C. J. Freake', in Survey of London: Volume 45, Knightsbridge, London, 2000, pp. 191-205, in British History Online website at http://www.british-history.ac.uk.

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• None.