The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Gold and Orange: The Neighbours probably dates from between 1895 and 1901, but could possibly have been worked on later. ¹

Gold and Orange: The Neighbours, Freer Gallery of Art

It is dated from the technique, subject and composition. It was first exhibited in 1901 but in 1903, shortly before it was sold, Whistler still thought it required 'more touches.' ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Possible titles include:

• 'Gold and Orange – The Neighbours' (1901, ISSPG). ³
• 'Rose et or: Les Voisines' (1902, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts). ⁴
• 'Neighbours' (1903, T. McLean). ⁵
• 'The Neighbours' (1903, Whistler). ⁶
• 'Brown & Gold The Neighbours' (1903, anon.). ⁷
• 'Gold and Orange: The Neighbours' (1980, YMSM). ⁸

The original ISSPG title of 1901 'Gold and Orange: The Neighbours' is generally accepted.

Description

Gold and Orange: The Neighbours, Freer Gallery of Art

A street scene in vertical format. It focusses on the ground floor of a house, with windows either side of a dark door, which has a skylight above it, and the lower part of a balcony above. A woman is just visible standing within the doorway, wearing a white bonnet and apron over a voluminous skirt. Another woman stands on the doorstep, at right, her arms crossed. She is similarly dressed, with a dark greenish-blue scarf at her neck, a white apron over her rosy pink skirt. The women's features are not clear. Several pale pink and dark grey items, possibly clothes or bed-linen, are hung over the balcony to air.

Site

Unknown.

Sitter

Unknown.

Comments

The painting conveys a subdued, intimate realism. Denys Sutton (1917-1991) commented on its 'Mallarméan allusiveness': 'Whistler appears to hint at inner meanings and to provide the stuff for interpretation; thus, a strange hallucinatory atmosphere is suggested by the presence of the two old women.' ⁹

Technique

Technique

Gold and Orange: The Neighbours, Freer Gallery of Art

It is very thinly painted, with the off-white underpaint showing through in places, providing the base colour for the window and foreground.

In February 1903, Whistler wrote (after the painting had been twice exhibited), "The Neighbours" is 400. guineas. This though complete, requires still a few more touches.' ¹⁰ However it is extremely unlikely, given his declining health, that he worked on it again before it was sold.

Conservation History

According to Freer Gallery of Art records, it was cleaned and resurfaced in 1923, resurfaced and cradled in 1938, and cleaned and surfaced in 1951; the website comments (2019) 'Recent cleaning has revealed the delicacy with which Whistler painted the delicious lace curtains and the crispness of the drying laundry.' ¹¹

Frame

Gold and Orange: The Neighbours, Freer Gallery of Art

Grau-style frame, dating from ca 1900. ¹²

History

Provenance

• 1903: sold by the artist through Hannah, Mrs E. K. Johnson (1851-1935) to John Balli (1849-1914), Paris, in February;
• 1913: sold at auction, John Balli sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 22 May 1913 (lot 25);
• 1913: bought from Albert Louis Roullier (1858-1920), Chicago art dealer, by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Whistler wrote to Mrs E. K. Johnson on 1 February 1903: 'The Irish Girl & The Neighbours are the two that would be at his [Balli's] disposal if he likes.' ¹³ It was sold by the artist through Mrs Johnson to John Balli in February 1903 for 400 guineas (£378 plus commission). ¹⁴

Balli's collection was first exhibited at the Goupil Gallery in London and then sold by the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. It included important works by Corot and Barbizon School painters. A reviewer commented:

'One of the most interesting pictures in the collection is a small oil-painting by Whistler entitled Les Voisines, purchased direct from the artist about 1902. Two figures are seen standing in a doorway, a simple but characteristic composition rich in harmoniously balanced tones.' ¹⁵

It was bought from the art dealer Albert Roullier by C. L. Freer in November 1913 for $3605 including expenses.

Exhibitions

• 1901: 3rd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Galleries of the Royal Institute, London, 1901 (cat. no. 34) as 'Gold and Orange – The Neighbours' (repr.)
• 1902: Douzième Exposition, Ouvrages de Peintures, Sculpture, Dessin, Gravure, Architecture et Objets d'Art, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Grand Palais, Paris, 1902 (cat. no. 1196) as 'Rose et or: Les Voisines'.
• 1903: Thirty-ninth Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Artists of the British and Foreign Schools, Thomas McLean's Gallery, London, 1903 (cat. no. 32) as 'Neighbours'.

In 1901, the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer praised this with Purple and Gold: Phryne the Superb! - Builder of Temples y490 as 'pictures of exceptional beauty and striking for their colour arrangements. ¹⁶

It was badly hung in the 1902 Paris exhibition, according to Gabriel Mourey (1865-1943). ¹⁷

Panel of five paintings, GUL MS Whistler NB2, pp. 120-21

Whistler had been concerned about the placing of his pictures and drew a rough sketch, Panel of five paintings m1706, of the proposed arrangement. ¹⁸ Five paintings, Violet and Silver: The Great Sea y298, Ivoire et or: Portrait de Madame Vanderbilt y515, Purple and Gold: Phryne the Superb! - Builder of Temples y490, Grenat et or: Le Petit Cardinal y469, and Gold and Orange: The Neighbours, were on view in this, the 12th Exhibition of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1902.

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.

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. 423), plate 260, as 'Gold and Orange: The Neighbours'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 3rd Exhibition, Pictures, Drawings, Prints and Sculptures, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Galleries of the Royal Institute, London, 1901 (cat. no. 34) as 'Gold and Orange – The Neighbours', repr.
• Douzième Exposition, Ouvrages de Peintures, Sculpture, Dessin, Gravure, Architecture et Objets d'Art, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Grand Palais, Paris, 1902 (cat. no. 1196) as 'Rose et or: Les Voisines'.
• Thirty-ninth Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Artists of the British and Foreign Schools, Thomas McLean's Gallery, London, 1903 (cat. no. 32) as 'Neighbours'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• 'To the Editor of the Morning Post', Morning Post, London, 7 October 1901, p. 6.
• Anon, Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Leeds, 7 October 1901, p. 4.

Journals 1855-1905

• Mourey, Gabriel, ‘Some Paintings and Sculpture at the Paris Salons’, The Studio, vol. 26, August 1902, pp. 191-202, at p. 196.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, repr. p. 121.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, repr. pl. 101.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 16 (13.66).
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 147, 295, pl. 54.

SALE:

• John Balli sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 22 May 1913 (lot 25).

Journals 1906-Present

• 'The John Balli Collection at the Goupil Gallery', Studio, International Art, vol. 58, 1913, pp. 300-305, at p. 304.

Newspapers 1906-Present

• Anon., 'The Balli Collection', Westminster Gazette, London, 7 May 1913, p. 2.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1913.66a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 352).

Other

• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.