The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

St Ives: The Beach dates from 1884. ¹

St Ives: The Beach, Private Collection

It dates from Whistler's visit to St Ives in Cornwall between January and March 1884.

Images

Subject

Titles

One title, with spelling and grammatical variations, has been suggested:

• 'St. Ives. La plage. – (St. Ives. The Beach.)' (1905, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts). ²
• 'St. Yves. [sic] The Beach' (1905, ISSPG). ³
• 'St Ives: The Beach' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

It is not certain whether the ISSPG's title 'St. Yves' was a typographical, geographical or iconographical error.

The preferred title is 'St Ives: The Beach'.

Description

St Ives: The Beach, Private Collection

A seascape in horizontal format, with waves breaking on a beach in the foreground, and a high horizon. There are rocks in the surf at left, two woman at right, and a man, seen from behind, standing at far right. The figures appear to be mending nets, and there are traces of a frame at right, from which a long sweep of rope and possibly nets cross the foreground in curving diagonal lines. The sky is cloudy, the sea grey, but the breaking wave is pale blue/green.

In 1905 a catalogue interpreted the small boy as a dog, describing it as: 'Marée basse. Trois petites figures à droite; près du centre, un chien; à gauche des roches plats.' The details are undoubtedly difficult to identify. ⁵

Site

The town of St Ives, a fishing port in Cornwall, south-west England. Whistler went there with Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) and Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938).

Technique

Technique

St Ives: The Beach, Private Collection

The panel has a shallow bevel on the verso; it may have been held by pins or clips at each side while being painted, because there are tiny indents at each side. The paint goes over the edge at the lower side.

The sky, beach, sea, and waves are painted with thin, fairly liquid paint, and the surf is indicated with wriggly brushstrokes of very slightly thicker paint. There are extensive signs of alterations, or of an earlier variation on the composition that is now partly painted over.

The women's figures are curiously stiff (there appears to be a faint standing woman in front of the two seated women; and it may be that the painting was revised by an unknown hand, at an early date, or that it was left by Whistler in a transitional state, or that the paint has become more translucent, leading to a lack of clarity in the composition.

There appear to be long curving strokes running diagonally across the lower right corner. The man at right may be working on nets supported on a sort of trestle (or perhaps the boom of a boat) at far right. It is hard to interpret the curving strokes, slightly rubbed, that sweep across parts of the surface, and the verticals that are visible through both the sea and sky. Other possible changes to the composition are indicated by traces of lines at left, where there may originally have been a boat. It is possible that originally the panel included several boats, or that Whistler painted over another picture entirely, or (and this is less likely) the panel was prepared with a thick crude underpaint.

Conservation History

As seen in 2019, the painting appears a little dirty, and the varnish cloudy, so that the figures appear faint and the waves, blurred. The panel is slightly bowed, and the paint is a little abraded at the edges by the frame. One area of abrasion is under the man at right. Small areas of paint loss at lower right and at the top have been inpainted.

Frame

The frame bears the label of Chapman Bros., 251 King's Road, London, SW.

History

Provenance

• By 1905: Jacques Émile Blanche (1861-1942).
• 1920s: possible sold at Christie's, London.
• Date unknown: according to family records, it was probably acquired by Miss Dodge (dates unknown) – either Grace Hoadley Dodge (b. 1856) or Mary Melissa Dodge (b. 1861) – in London, and passed to Miss Dodge's brother-in-law, William Church Osborn (1862-1951), who had married Alice Clinton Hoadley Dodge (Mrs W. C. Osborn) (1865-1946), in 1886;
• 1951: bequeathed to W. C. Osborn's son, William H. Osborn (dates unknown);
• Date unknown: bequeathed to W. H. Osborn's widow, Mrs Kate Osborn (dates unknown).
• 2013: sold at auction, Christie's, New York, 5 December 2013 (lot 39) 'St Ives: The Beach'.
• By 2018: Gulf State Foundation Collection;
• 2019: art market, New York.

The painting's early and recent history is unclear. By 2018 it was owned by the Gulf State Foundation Collection and in the spring of 2019 it was on deposit temporarily at Christie's, New York.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 78) as 'St. Ives. La plage. – (St. Ives. The Beach.)'.
• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 88) as 'St. Yves.[sic] The Beach'.

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime. However, it was lent by the artist Jacques Émile Blanche (1861-1942) to the 1905 Whistler Memorial exhibitions in Paris and London.

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. 267), plate 181, as 'St Ives: The Beach'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 78) as 'St. Ives. La plage. – (St. Ives. The Beach.)'.
• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 88) as 'St. Yves. [sic] The Beach'.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• None.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

SALES:

• Christie's, New York, 5 December 2013 (lot 39) 'St Ives: The Beach'.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• None.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 427).

Other

• None.