The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Gold Scab dates from 1879, shortly after Whistler was declared 'insolvent'. ¹ It was described by the Pennells as the third of three satirical pictures of Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892). ²

It was described by Alan Summerly Cole (1846-1934) in his diary for 10 September 1879: 'painting of a demoniacal Leyland playing piano - Ye gold scab with an irruption [sic] of Frilthy lucre ... forcible piece of weird decoration - hideous - displaying bitter animus.' ³

Whistler told Walter Greaves (1846-1930), '[Y]ou must go up into the Studio and see the "Gold Scab." !!' ⁴ It was left in Whistler's house, the White House, when he departed for Venice in the late autumn of 1879.

Whistler intended that The Gold Scab should be in his studio, with The Loves of the Lobsters y209 and Mount Ararat y210, when F. R. Leyland and the committee of Whistler's creditors made their official inspection of the White House in 1879.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'THE "Gold Scab." Eruption in FRiLTHY Lucre' (1879, Whistler). ⁵
• 'A Satirical Painting of a Gentleman styled "The Creditor" ' (1880, Sotheby's). ⁶
• 'Gold Scab' (1879, Whistler). ⁷
• 'Arrangement in Green and Gold' (1900, Goupil). ⁸
• 'The Gold Scab' (1980, YMSM). ⁹

'The Gold Scab' is the preferred title.

Description

The Gold Scab, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

This is a satirical portrait of Whistler's Liverpool patron F. R. Leyland, mocking Leyland's money and his addiction to frilled shirts. He is caricatured as a peacock seated at the piano, on a model of Whistler's White House. Whistler was obliged to sell the White House after he went bankrupt in 1879, and blamed this on Leyland's refusal to pay 2000 guineas for the decoration of Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178 in 1876-1877.

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) saw it in 1902 and described it as follows:

'Mr Jacomb Hood, the Artist, Has the burlesque of Mr Leyland - Large canvas -

A grotesque peacock, sitting upon the peak of a white house, his hands which are great scaly talons are playing a piano, his feet are claws and run down in the foreground, from between the feathers of his body and the scales of feet and hands golden guineas are exuding - The piece of music being played is called "An irruption in frilthy lucre".

He wears frills in shirt front and has on very short black trunks in imitation of knickerbockers.' ¹⁰

Site

The White House, which figures conspicuously in this caricature, was designed by Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) as a house and studio for Whistler in Tite Street, Chelsea. Modifications made to the design and escalating costs contributed to Whistler's bankruptcy.

Sitter

Frederick Parsons, F. R. Leyland, photograph

This is a satirical portrait of Whistler's Liverpool patron Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892), in which Leyland's money and his addiction to frilled shirts are the subject of especial derision. He is caricatured as a peacock seated at the piano, on a model of Whistler's White House. Whistler was obliged to sell the White House after he went bankrupt in 1879, and blamed this on Leyland's refusal to pay 2000 guineas for the decoration of the Peacock Room in 1876-1877 (see Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room y178).

The butterfly signature has a sting on its tail, a barb which often appeared on the butterfly signature in Whistler's letters after this, but never on paintings.

F. R. Leyland took his mistress, Rosa Laura Caldecutt (1843?-1890), to the White House a week after Whistler's bankruptcy sale at Sotheby & Co. on 12 February 1880. They were shown around:

'Watson did not know who he was but knew him by his resemblance to the Gold Scab & by Mrs C's & his interest in the Lobsters / at which they looked & then at one another smiling quizzically - though not unhappily quite - perhaps to the Lighthearted this is fame & reputation such as he has.' ¹¹

Comments

A careful copy in charcoal, watercolour, and gouache, said to be by Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) (whose father was among Whistler’s major creditors at the time of his bankruptcy), is now in the Art Institute of Chicago. ¹²

Technique

Technique

The Gold Scab, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

The caricature was probably painted over another painting, traces of which can be seen, complicating the textures and patterns on the surface. The background is smudged and something has been rubbed out underneath it.

The Gold Scab is painted thinly, predominately in soft greens and blues. There are numerous pentimenti, showing changes in the composition. An area round the foot, for instance, has been rubbed down and repainted. The linear outlines were painted like calligraphy, and are highly stylised and elegant.

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

The Gold Scab, photograph, 1920s

The Gold Scab, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

1872/1873: the Flat Whistler frame, originally intended for The Three Girls y088, was painted about 1872/1873 with a petal decoration, signed with a butterfly, and bears the first bars from the third 'Moments Musicaux', Opus. 94, by Franz Schubert (1797–1828). ¹³

The butterfly signature, seen at the top, is sideways on. The frame has suffered some abrasion and paint loss.

History

Provenance

• 1880: sold at auction in Whistler's bankruptcy sale, Sotheby's, London, 12 February 1880 (lot 88) as 'A Satirical Painting of a Gentleman styled "The Creditor" ', and bought by Dowdeswell, London dealer, for 12 guineas (£12.12.0);
• Date unknown: sold by Dowdeswell's to Captain H. S. Hubbell (dates unknown), London.
• By 1892: bought by George Percy Jacomb-Hood (1857-1929).
• By 1910: bought by Theron Clark Crawford (1849-1925), London.
• 1912: bought by S. & G. Gump Co., San Francisco;
• 1914: sold by them to Alma de Bretteville Spreckels (1881-1968), San Francisco;
• 1920: bought by French & Co., New York art dealers;
• 1946: still with French & Co., New York.
• By 1957: with Knoedler & Co., New York (a/c #5236/5964);
• 1959: sold on approval to the Maryhill Museum, Maryhill, Washington, in February, but returned.
• 1977: presented by Mrs Spreckels to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor through the Patrons of Art and Music.

Whistler painted two other satirical pictures that relate to his feud with Leyland and which, according to Pennell (1908), Whistler intended should be in his studio when Leyland and the committee of creditors made their official inspection of the White House in 1879 (The Loves of the Lobsters y209 and Mount Ararat y210).

The forthcoming bankruptcy sale was mentioned in various newspapers, including the Glasgow Evening Post on 17 December 1879, which described it as a 'pleasing example of satirical art'. As Whistler told Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890):

'How about the White House[? Did you see a paragraph in the World a couple of weeks ago? A huge portrait of a former patron, it would appear has been painted by Whistler representing the said Macaenas [sic] as a demon - "sitting on the famous White House" .... This is for exhibition in a well known auction room!' ¹⁴

According to both Graves and the Pennells, when Leyland learnt that The Gold Scab y208 was to be included in Whistler's sale in 1880 he tried to take legal measures to have it removed. ¹⁵ At the sale, 'An occasional correspondent' of the New York Daily Tribune reported that the sale had included 'a most extraordinary caricature of one of Whistler's unaccommodating creditors – more fiend than man – reminding one of Mephistopheles with the sardonic replaced by the avaricious. This sold for $63, and was bought by- the creditors himself, perhaps!' ¹⁶

Again, according to the Pennells, The Gold Scab was sold by Messrs Dowdeswell to Captain Henry S. Hubbell, and found some years later by the London artist G. P. Jacomb-Hood in a pawnshop in the King's Road, Chelsea. ¹⁷ According to Jacomb-Hood himself, he got it from his frame-maker, who had bought it at a sale. In May 1892 Jacomb-Hood was offered £800 for The Gold Scab but refused to sell it, and Whistler wrote to him approvingly:

They tell me that you have been quite perfect about the Peacock Leyland Picture - That when they came & offered you the new money of the millionaire of the Burlington - you, to their bewilderment, quietly refused -

So simple is the conduct of a gentleman! but so rarely has work of mine fallen into the hands of such an one, that I cannot refrain from /congratulating him - and myself when the pretty occasion occurs!' ¹⁸

According to G. Egerton (dates unknown), The Gold Scab was on sale in Bond Street about 1897 for £30. ¹⁹

Sketches of 'The Gold Scab', Library of Congress, Washington, DC

It was possibly on the market around 1900, when it was sketched by Whistler, but, on the other hand, this could well have been a memory sketch.

It was eventually acquired by Theron C. Crawford, London, who offered it to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1910 for £2000. ²⁰ Instead, it was bought by S. & G. Gump Co., who arranged a special exhibition for it in their San Francisco gallery in 1913, and sold it in the following year to Mrs Spreckels. ²¹ It was bought from her by Messrs. French & Co. in 1920 or 1921 and was still with that firm in March 1946. ²² However, the subsequent provenance is unclear. It was with Knoedler's, who lent it to an exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1957 (cat. no. 49) and sold it on approval to the Maryhill Museum in February 1959, but it was returned. At some time it was returned to Mrs Spreckels' possession (it is possible that it was owned by her from 1914 on, but offered for sale through various art dealers), and she finally gave it to the San Francisco Museums.

Exhibitions

• 32nd Exhibition of Works of Modern Artists, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Glasgow, 1893 or [Exhibition], Boussod, Valadon & Cie., of the Goupil Gallery, London, at Wellington Studios, Glasgow, 1893.
• Spring Exhibition, Goupil Gallery, London, 1900 (cat. no. 26) as 'Arrangement in Green and Gold'.
• Exhibition at S. & G. Gump Art Galleries, San Francisco, 1913 (no catalogue). ²³
• The First Annual Fine Arts Exposition, Antique and Decorative Arts League, New York, 1934.

The Gold Scab, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

In 1892-1893 the Glasgow art dealer Alexander Reid (1854-1928), negotiated the loan of The Gold Scab in order to arrange for its exhibition, beside La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine y050, Arrangement in Black and Brown: The Fur Jacket y181, and Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell y242, in January 1893. ²⁴ This did not go down well: it was described in the Glasgow Evening Post of 25 January 1893 as 'The Gold Scab,” that extraordinary Japanese grotesquerie, in which the artist caricatured Mr Leyland, his patron. The Gold Scab suggests a nightmare, consequent on too much lobster'.

Equally, the Goupil exhibition of 1900 was not a success for Whistler. The critic of The Builder disliked the picture intensely, describing it as '[A] curiosity in the shape of a life-size picture by Mr Whistler called ''Arrangement in Green and Gold'', but which appears to be a representation of the devil – or a devil playing the piano , and is about as repulsive a thing as could well be imagined.' ²⁵ And The Times was seriously critical of both artist and gallery:

'It is a pity that the exhibition is marred by the presence of a huge and ugly caricature painted by Mr Whistler many years ago after a quarrel with one of his employers. It may have been excusable to paint it and to laugh over it with the artist's friends when the quarrel was fresh; it ought long ago to have been destroyed, and it certainly should not be exhibited at the Goupil Gallery.' ²⁶

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. 208), plate 148, as 'The Gold Scab'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Spring Exhibition, Goupil Gallery, London, 1900 (cat. no. 26) as 'Arrangement in Green and Gold'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'How The World Wags', Glasgow Evening Post, Glasgow, 17 December 1879, p. 2.
• 'An occasional correspondent', 'Relics of Lord Byron. An Interesting sale in London', New York Daily Tribune, New York, 13 March 1880, p. 6.
• Anon., 'Editorial Brevities', Glasgow Evening Post, Glasgow, 25 January 1893, p. 4.
• Anon., 'Minor Exhibitions', The Times, London, 26 March 1900, p. 3,

Journals 1855-1905

• Godwin, E. W., 'Notes on Current Events', British Architect, 6 January 1882, p. 2.
• Anon., 'The Goupil Gallery', The Builder, 24 March 1900, p. 284.
• Graves, Algernon, 'James Abbott McNeill Whistler', Printseller and Print Collector, vol. 1, August 1903, pp. 341-45, pp. 342-43.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces, New York, 2004, pp. 254-256, 258, 420, notes 78-79.
• Merrill, Linda, A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in 'Whistler v. Ruskin', Washington and London, 1992, p. 403.
• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 288.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 256, 259, repr. f.p. 250.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 5th (revised) edition, London and Philadelphia, 1911, pp. 183, 186-87.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, pp. 113, 326.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 336-37.
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 102-03.
• Sutherland, Daniel E., Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake, New Haven and London, 2014, p. 164.
• Walker, John, James McNeill Whistler, New York, 1987, p. 85.

Books, General

• Burgard, Timothy Anglin, and Daniell Cornell, Masterworks of American painting at the De Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, 2005, pp. 178, 181.
• Dayan, Peter, Art as Music, Music as Poetry, Poetry as Art, from Whistler to Stravinsky and Beyond, Farnham, 2011, pp. 25-28.
• Jacomb-Hood, G. P., With Brush and Pencil, London, 1925, p. 47.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Antique and Decorative Arts League (ed.), The First Annual Fine Arts Exposition, New York, 1934.
• Art Collection of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1926, p. 11, repr.
• Exhibition of Paintings, French & Co., New York, 1945.
• 1st Annual Fine Art Exhibition, The Forum, Rockefeller Center, New York, 1957 (cat. no. 49).
• American Classics of the Nineteenth Century, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica; Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Baltimore Museum of Art; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, 1957-1958 (cat. no. 49).
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 42).
• Peacock Room Remix: Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur Sackler Gallery, Washington DC., 2013-2014.

Journals 1906-Present

• American Magazine of Art, September 1921, p. 298.
• 'Notes of the Month', International Studio, vol. 95, no. 383, February 1930, pp. 59-60, repr. p. 60.
• 'The great calender of American exhibitions', Arts Magazine, Art Digest Incorporated, 1945, vol. 20, p. 12.
• Fell, Herbert Granville, 'Memories of Whistler, No. 1. - The Peacock Room', Connoisseur, vol. 95, 1935, pp. 21-24, p. 21.
• Horowitz, Ira M., 'Whistler's Frames', The Art Journal, vol. 39, Winter 1979-80, pp. 124-31.
• Savage, Kirk, ' "A Forcible Piece of Weird Decoration": Whistler and "The Gold Scab" ', Smithsonian Studies in American Art, vol. 4, no. 2, Spring 1990, pp. 40-53.

Websites

• Peacock Room Remix: Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre, Freer Gallery of Art, 2015 website at http://www.asia.si.edu/filthylucre.
• 'The Gold Scab', Art Institute of Chicago website at https://www.artic.edu.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 444).

Other

• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.