The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Nocturne: Chelsea dates from 1881. ¹

The lithographer Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) described an incident when he was a student in London about 1881,

'I shall never forget a lesson which he [Whistler] gave me one evening. We had left the studio when it was quite dusk, and were walking along the road by the gardens of Chelsea Hospital, when he suddenly stopped, and pointed to a group of buildings in the distance, an old public house at the corner of a road, with windows and shops showing golden lights through the gathering mist of twilight, said, "Look!" As he did not seem to have anything to sketch or make notes on, I offered him my note-book; "No, no, be quiet," was the answer; and after a long pause, he turned and walked back a few yards; then, with his back to the scene at which I was looking, he said, "Now, see if I have learned it," and repeated a full description of the scene even as one might repeat a poem one had learned by heart ... In a few days I was at the studio again, and there on the easel was the realisation of the picture ... I ... made a memory sketch of his painting ... I have never seen the picture since.' ²

Nocturne: Chelsea, The Hunterian

T. R. Way, Nocturne: Chelsea, from Way 1912

Way reproduces his 'memory sketch' beside a pen drawing by Whistler for Nocturne: Chelsea y235, likewise known as Nocturne: Chelsea m0860, which was then (1912) in the possession of Whistler's sister-in-law, Helen ('Nellie') Euphrosyne Whistler (1849-1917), and is now in the Hunterian, University of Glasgow.

Images

Subject

Titles

Only one title has been suggested:

• 'Nocturne: Chelsea' (1980, YMSM). ³

Description

Nocturne: Chelsea, The Hunterian

T. R. Way described the scene as 'a group of buildings in the distance, an old public house at the corner of a road, with windows and shops showing golden lights through the gathering mist of twilight.' ⁴ Both he and Whistler made memory sketches of the scene, Whistler's being Nocturne: Chelsea m0860.

Site

Chelsea, London. According to T. R. Way, 'We had left the studio ... and were walking along the road by the gardens of Chelsea Hospital, when he ... pointed to a group of buildings in the distance, an old public house at the corner of a road, with windows and shops.' ⁵

Technique

Composition

Nocturne: Chelsea, The Hunterian

Nocturne: Black and Gold – Rag Shop, Chelsea, Fogg Art Museum

The composition of Nocturne: Chelsea y235, as seen in Whistler's memory sketch, Nocturne: Chelsea m0860, was a little like Nocturne: Black and Gold - Rag Shop, Chelsea y204.

Technique

Unknown.

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

Unknown.

Exhibitions

Unknown.

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. 235) as 'Nocturne: Chelsea', plates 418-19.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995, drawing repr.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, pp. 67-68, drawings repr. f.p. 68.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• None.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• None.

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• None.