The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 272
Pink and Opal: Harbour
Date
Pink and Opal: Harbour probably dates from Whistler's painting trip to Cornwall between January and March 1884. 1
Pink and Opal: Harbour, Colby College Museum of Art
It was first exhibited in Whistler's one-man show 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 12).
Images
Pink and Opal: Harbour, Colby College Museum of Art
Pink and Opal: Harbour, photograph, 1920
Subject
Titles
Suggested titles as follows:
- 'Pink and opal – Harbour' (1884, Dowdeswell). 2
- 'Marine' (1920, Knoedler's). 3
- 'Pink and Opal: Harbour' and 'Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet' (1980, YMSM). 4
- 'Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet' [sic] (2007, Sotheby's). 5
'Pink and Opal: Harbour' is the preferred title. It has sometimes been mistaken for another painting, Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet y273.
Description
Pink and Opal: Harbour, Colby College Museum of Art
A horizontal panel, with a view across a beach to a harbour where many small fishing boats are moored. A pale blue-grey sky, and the masts of the boats, are reflected in the shallow water. Several figures are standing on the beach at left.
Site
The small but busy fishing harbour at St Ives, Cornwall, in south-west England.
Technique
Technique
Pink and Opal: Harbour, Colby College Museum of Art
It was thinly and fluidly painted on a panel with a grey ground. The tiny wind-blown figures were painted expressively in grey and black with a small brush. Fine brush strokes define the serried ranks of fishing boats, their masts reflecting on the damp shore. Long strokes of slightly thicker paint in white, grey and yellow ochre were used for the rowing boats in the shallows. The whole effect is very fresh and impressionistic.
Conservation History
Pink and Opal: Harbour, photograph, 1920
There is fine crazing (craquelure) over the surface, particularly in the centre. There is some abrasion and paint loss at the edges, particularly at left and right probably from being inserted into slots in a paint box. and partly from the frame.
History
Provenance
- 1884: possibly bought by Miss van der Weyer – Louise Marie [Augusta?] van de Weyer (1851-1896), London;
- By 1920: 'Marine' bought by Knoedler's, London and New York art dealers (a/c LC 144);
- 1920: sold by Knoedler's to 'Weyer', New York, 29 September 1920 (a/c #70964).
- Date unknown: William Macbeth Gallery, New York.
- Date unknown: J. J. Ryan (dates unknown), and thence by family descent;
- 2007: sold at auction, Sotheby's, New York, 28 November 2007 (lot 53);
- 2008: given by Peter H. Lunder (b. 1933) and Paula Crane Lunder (b. 1935) to Colby College Museum.
Messrs Dowdeswell's records of the 1884 exhibition do not mention a purchaser for Pink and Opal: Harbour y272, but they do record that Miss Van de Weyer bought Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet y273 from the exhibition. 6
Pink and Opal: Harbour, photograph, 1920
In 1920 Knoedler's recorded a 'Marine' size 8 3/4 x 4 7/8" as from the collection of Miss van de Weyer, sister of Lady Esher and the daughter of Sylvain van de Weyer (1802-1874), and noted that it had also been in the collection of Mrs Story, widow of Julian Russell Story (1850-1919). Knoedler's recorded it, confusingly, as also being sold to 'Weyer'. An old photograph from the Knoedler archives (reproduced above) shows this to have been Pink and Opal: Harbour y272.
The provenance is not absolutely clear: it is not certain when the title and early history of this painting became confused with that of Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet y273. Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975) certainly assumed that the painting owned by Miss Van de Weyer and later at Knoedler's was Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet y273, and the 1980 catalogue raisonné published it under that title. However press reviews written in 1884 show that Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet was a different subject.
At the auction in 2007, The City Review reported: 'a lovely oil on panel ... has a modest estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. It sold for $361,000.' 7
Exhibitions
- 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 12) as 'Pink and opal – Harbour'.
- Annual Exhibition of Sketches, Pictures & Photography: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Mr Whistler ..., Dublin Sketching Club, Dublin, 1884 (cat. no. 241) as 'Pink and opal – Harbour'.
The Morning Post described this painting as one of several 'productions crude, immature, and, like King Richard, "but half made up." ' 8
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. 272) as 'Pink and Opal: Harbour'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 12) as 'Pink and opal – Harbour'.
- Annual Exhibition of Sketches, Pictures & Photography: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Mr Whistler ..., Dublin Sketching Club, Dublin, 1884 (cat. no. 241) as 'Pink and opal – Harbour'.
Newspapers 1855-1905
- Anon., 'Messrs Dowdeswell's Gallery', Morning Post, London, 24 May 1884, p. 5.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
Monographs
- None.
Books on Whistler
- MacDonald, Margaret F., 'Collecting Whistler', in Paula Lunder et al., The Lunder Collection: A Gift of Art to Colby College, Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, MA, 2013, pp. 109-143, at pp. 116-17 as 'Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet'..
- McCann, Justin (ed.), Whistler and the World: The Lunder Collection of James McNeill Whistler at the Colby College of Art, New York, 2015.
- Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, p. 28.
Books, General
- MacDonald, Margaret F., 'Collecting Whistler' in Hannah Blunt, Sharon Corwin, Elizabeth Finch, Lauren Lessing and Elizabeth Spear, The Lunder Collection: A Gift of Art to Colby College, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2013, pp. 108-143, at p. 116, repr. p. 117.
Catalogues 1906-Present
EXHIBITION:
- Myers, Kenneth John, Mr. Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2003, p. 86.
SALE:
- Sotheby's, New York, 28 November 2007 (lot 53) as 'Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet'. [sic]
Journals 1906-Present
- None.
Websites
- Colby College Museum of Art website at http://www.colby.edu.
- 'The City Review article on the Fall 2007 American Paintings', online at http://www.thecityreview.com/f07samp.html.
Unpublished
- None.
Other
- None.
Notes:
1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 272).
2: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884 (cat. no. 12).
3: Photographs, one dated 1920, and another sent to A. McL. Young, 1972, Knoedler Archives, New York.
4: YMSM 1980 [more], 'Pink and Opal: Harbour' (cat. no. 272), 'Blue and Opal: Herring Fleet' [sic] (cat. no. 273).
5: Sotheby's, New York, 28 November 2007 (lot 53).
6: Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell to Whistler, [July 1885/1886], GUW #00867.
7: 'The City Review article on the Fall 2007 American Paintings', online at http://www.thecityreview.com/f07samp.html.
8: 'Messrs Dowdeswell's Gallery', Morning Post, London, 24 May 1884, p. 5. GUL Whistler PC 12, p. 17. Quoted in Myers 2003 [more], p. 86.