The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe dates from the autumn of 1885. ¹

Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe, National Gallery of Australia

It is dated from the technique and signature, and from Whistler's known visit to Dieppe in 1885.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Harmony in blue and pearl. The Sands, Dieppe' (1886, Dowdeswell). ²
• 'Marine' (1922, Cincinnati Art Museum). ³
• 'Marine; Figures on the Sands' (1947, Macbeth). ⁴
• 'Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

The title 'Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe' is based on the original 1886 title, with modified punctuation.

Description

Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe, National Gallery of Australia

A seascape in vertical format, with numerous figures on the beach and paddling in the shallows, and a few further out, at the edge of the waves. There are several sailing boats out at sea. The sea is a pale blue and the sky streaked with pale grey clouds.

Site

Dieppe on the French coast, a busy port, ferry terminal and holiday resort.

Technique

Technique

Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe, National Gallery of Australia

Elegant, expressive brushwork and creamy paint, applied freely on the sea and with precision on the figures, distinguish this painting. The strong vertical and diagonal brushstrokes of the priming are obvious throughout.

Conservation History

Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe, photograph, 1942

Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe, photograph, 1959

Unknown. The pale blue overall translucent paint or varnish is unusual.

Frame

Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe, National Gallery of Australia

Grau-style, American manufacture, dating from the early 1900s. ⁶

History

Provenance

• Date unknown: given by Henry Irving (1838-1905) to Ellen Terry (1847-1928), London;
• After 1905: bought by Scott & Fowles, New York dealers;
• 1921: bought from Scott & Fowles by the Cincinnati Art Museum;
• 1945: sold at auction, Parke-Bernet, New York, 18 October 1945 (lot 37), and bought by Macbeth Galleries, New York;
• 1945/1946: bought by Carolyn Glendenin Foulke (née Ryan) (1910-1987), Florida;
• 1987: passed to the estate of C. R. Foulke;
• 1990: sold at auction, Sotheby’s, New York, 29 November 1990 (lot 77).
• By 2001: with Jonathan ('Jack') Westervelt Warner (1917-2017), Jack Warner Collection, (Gulf States Paper Corporation, now the Westervelt Company), Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
• 2013: private collection;
• 2015: Thomas Colville (n/a), Thomas Colville Fine Art, New Haven and New York;
• 2017: purchased by the National Gallery of Australia with the assistance of Allan and Maria Myers, Andrew and Tracey Sisson, the American Friends of the NGA with the support of the Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation and the Neilson Foundation.

According to museum records, it was bought by the actor Henry Irving for £30.0.0 and given by him to the actress Ellen Terry, who sold it to Scott & Fowles. It is not clear when and where the painting was acquired or sold by the Jack Warner Collection, which owned it in 2001.

Exhibitions

• 1886: 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 1) as 'Harmony in blue and pearl. The Sands, Dieppe'.

In 1886 the price of 'Harmony in blue and pearl The Sands, Dieppe' was estimated at £60 by Dowdeswell but finally priced at £30.0.0 by Whistler. ⁷

The Saturday Review on 22 May 1886 commented on 'the aerial sands and liquid water of the Harmony in Blue and Pearl (1), a strongly painted oil upright'. The Magazine of Art called it 'a solid oil upright, which is more than decorative, and gives admirably the flat, oily surface of a miniature lagoon inside the breaking waves on a flat sandy coast.' ⁸ A correspondent of the Dundee Evening Telegraph wrote even more admiringly, on 27 May 1886:

'Some of the drawings are particularly graceful and harmonious; one, for example, "A Harmony in Blue and Pearl – The Sands, Dieppe", gives the true feeling of sea and sky as none but a poet amongst painters could have ever seen it.'

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. 327), plate 203, as 'Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Second Series, Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1886 (cat. no. 1) as 'Harmony in blue and pearl – The Sands, Dieppe'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Whistler Exhibition', Illustrated London News, London, 15 May 1886, p. 14.
• Anon., Saturday Review, London, 22 May 1886.
• Anon., ['A Lady Correspondent'], 'English Art in Bond Street', Dundee Evening Telegraph, Dundee, 27 May 1886, p. 4.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Chronicle of Art: Art in May', The Magazine of Art, vol. 9 (supplement), 1886, pp. xxx-xxxi, at p. xxxi.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Pousette-Dart, Nathaniel, James McNeill Whistler, New York, 1924, plate 44.

Books, General

• Armstrong, Tom, An American Odyssey: The Warner Collection of Fine and Decorative Arts, Gulf States Paper Corporation, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, New York, The Monacelli Press, 2001, p. 130, repr.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITIONS:

• 29th Annual Exhibition of American Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1922 (cat. no. 23) as 'Marine', repr.
• Whistler Loan Exhibition, Macbeth Gallery, New York, 1947 (cat. no. 33) as 'Marine; Figures on the Sands'.
• White, Nelson C., James McNeill Whistler Seventeenth Anniversary Exhibition, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, CT, 1949 (cat. no. 25).
• Whistler and his Influence, Thomas Colville Fine Arts, The Art Show, The Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2015, plate 1, as 'Harmony in Blue and Pearl: The Sands, Dieppe'.

SALES:

• Parke-Bernet, New York, 18 October 1945 (lot 37).
• Sotheby’s, New York, 29 November 1990 (lot 77).

Journals 1906-Present

• 'Whistlers at the Cincinnati Museum', 2, Fine Arts Review, October 1922, repr. p. 9.

Websites

• National Gallery of Australia, website at https://cs.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?irn=315372
• National Gallery of Australia, press-release at https://nga.gov.au/aboutus/press/pdf/mr_newworksatnga.pdf.
• Hardy, Karen, 'The highlights of summer 2017-18 at the National Gallery of Australia', The Canberra Times, 7 December 2017, website at https://www.canberratimes.com.au.
• Westwood, Matthew, 'Whistler's little painting makes a big impression', The Australian, 8 December 2017, website at https://www.theaustralian.com.au.
• 'Whistler acquisition a major highlight of new works at the National Gallery of Australia', Artdaily.org, website at http://artdaily.com.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 428).

Other

• None.