The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Chelsea Houses certainly dates from after 1883, and before 1896.

Chelsea Houses, Stanford University

A date of 1884/1888 is indicated by the technique and subject matter, and by the woman's costume, with its bustle. ¹ It is difficult to date, partly because of its condition.

Images

Subject

Titles

Alternative titles have been suggested:

• 'Street in Chelsea' (1902, C. L. Freer). ²
• 'Chelsea Houses' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ³
• 'Two Doorways' (1957, Knoedler's). ⁴
• 'Chelsea Houses' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

'Chelsea Houses' is the preferred title, as published in 1904.

Description

Chelsea Houses, Stanford University

Chelsea Houses, photograph, 1980

A street scene, painted in horizontal format. At right are two light brown wooden doors with identical features – including door-knockers. To left of them are two windows, possibly shuttered or curtained in dark grey. There are white painted surrounds on both doors and windows. The windowsills of windows on the first floor are just visible. The wall itself is dark brown, and – possibly because of the long brushstrokes – looks like wooden planks. A railing runs along the front to left of the doors. In the foreground at left stand two figures, a woman in profile to left, with a girl facing her. These are faint, and easier to see in the 1980 photograph reproduced above.

Site

The scene is comparable to Whistler's etching Justice Walk, Chelsea [441] of 1888, but is not identical.

Technique

Technique

Chelsea Houses, Stanford University

There are traces of pencil work under the paint, around the windows and door. It is very thinly painted. The brushstrokes are curiously tentative except for the grey foreground, where long squarish strokes give a curiously uneven appearance.

Conservation History

Chelsea Houses, photograph, 1957

Chelsea Houses, photograph, 1980

Chelsea Houses, Stanford University , 2015

Chelsea Houses, photograph, 2016

Early photographs show extensive fine craquelure. Different photographs give very different impressions of the painting, and this may be due to lighting, but they suggest that it has darkened. The two figures painted thinly in black on the left have become very faint.

Frame

Chelsea Houses, frame, detail

Wooden frame, not original.

History

Provenance

• 1896: sold by the Goupil Gallery, London, to Joshua Montgomery Sears (1854–1905), Boston;
• 1905: passed by family descent to Herbert Montgomery Sears (d. 1942), Boston.
• 1957: with Knoedler, New York art dealers;
• Before 1971: bought by William F. Davidson (d. 1973), art dealer, of Knoedler's, New York;
• 1973-1975: with W. F. Davidson's estate;
• 1975: sold at auction, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 12 December 1975 (lot 78), and bought by Eugene Victor Thaw (d. 2018), New York dealer, on behalf of Agnew's, London art dealers, for $4250;
• 1976: sold by Agnew's to Stanford University, gift of the Committee for Art.

It was Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) who noted in his diary in 1902 that Goupil, London dealers, had sold 'Street in Chelsea' to the Boston collector in 1896. ⁶ It was lent by J. M. Sears to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in Boston in 1904 (cat. no. 10) and by Mrs J. M. Sears to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in October 1905. On J. M. Sears' death it passed by family descent to H. M. Sears, but it is not clear what happened to it after that. On his death in 1942, his collection was sold at auction by Parke-Bernet, New York, 17 October 1942, but this painting was not in the sale.

It reappeared in 1957 when it was lent by Knoedler's to an exhibition in Pittsburgh, Utica et al., 1957-1958 (cat. no. 48) and thereafter the provenance is straightforward.

Exhibitions

• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 10) as 'Chelsea Houses'.

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. 290), plate 192, as 'Chelsea Houses'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 10) as 'Chelsea Houses'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., Boston Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, October 1905, p. 40.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler, New York, 1913, p. 156.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• 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. 48).
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 38).
• Whistler: Themes and Variations, Montgomery Art Gallery, Pomona College, Claremont, CA; Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA; Stanford University Museum of Art, CA, 1978 (cat. no. 55).
• Songs on Stone: James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography, Art Institute of Chicago and National Gallery of Canada, 1998–1999 (cat. no. 57) repr. p. 45, fig. 41.

SALE:

• Sotheby Park-Bernet, New York, 12 December 1975 (lot 78), repr.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, at http://cantorcollections.stanford.edu (acc. 2019).

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• None.