The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Blue and Silver: Dieppe may date from August 1897, but more likely from the summer of 1898 or 1899. ¹ It is dated from the technique, Whistler's known visits to Dieppe, and the butterfly signature. Whistler was in Dieppe about the middle of August 1898 en route to London, and it may date from that brief visit. He was there again in 1899, when he probably painted Green and Silver: The Great Sea y518, which is similar in colour and technique.

Blue and Silver: Dieppe, New Britain Museum of American Art

Green and Silver: The Great Sea, The Hunterian

The painting was sold when barely dry by Whistler to the author Amy Lowell (1874-1925) of Brookline, Massachusetts, who was then staying at 2 Clarges Street, Piccadilly, but unfortunately his letter about the sale is not dated. ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Minor variations in title have been suggested:

• 'Blue & Silver – Dieppe' (1897/1899, Whistler). ³
• 'Blue and silver – Dieppe' (1904, Copley Society, Boston). ⁴
• 'Blue and Silver: Dieppe' (1980, YMSM). ⁵

'Blue and Silver: Dieppe' is the preferred title, based on Whistler's title, although it seems a little incongruous, the predominant colour being the deep green of the sea, though admittedly under a blue sky.

Description

Blue and Silver: Dieppe, New Britain Museum of American Art

Bright clouds in a blue sky over a dark green sea: a seascape in horizontal format. There are three sailing boats out at sea, at right. The sea is choppy, with white breaking waves.

Site

Dieppe, France. Whistler spent time in Dieppe between July and September 1897, when he painted Harmony in Blue and Silver: Beaching the Boat, Étretat y483, and in 1899, when he probably painted The Sea, Pourville, No. 1 y516 and Green and Silver: The Great Sea y518.

Comments

The New Britain Museum of American Art website comments:

'Despite its size, Blue and Silver, Dieppe showcases [Whistler's] tendency toward abstraction. The space is divided into bands of color representing sea, sky and clouds. Whistler reduced the entire scene to only a few colors applied to the surface with strong, expressive brushstrokes. The feeling of the landscape on a gray day is conveyed through the color and texture. Whistler was inspired by Japanese prints and other Asian art forms, and the flat bands of color certainly exemplify this influence.' ⁶

Technique

Technique

Blue and Silver: Dieppe, New Britain Museum of American Art

The panel was primed with vertical strokes in pale grey, which show through the quickly and thinly painted sea and sky. The predominant colour is green – a vigorously painted grey-green sea, with a startling line of bottle green at the horizon – plus grey clouds broken with patches of turquoise sky. It is painted with soft, comparatively broad soft brushes, occasionally throwing up a ridge of thicker paint along the edges of the stroke.

Conservation History

Whistler wrote to the purchaser, Amy Lowell:

'I only beg ... that you will leave it in its frame for the next six months, when you may send it to Mr. Kennedy, Messrs. Wunderlich. New York, who will varnish it - and then you will see the picture in all its full brightness, as it was the day it was painted, for the first time -

Meanwhile it is most important that it should not be touched - as the signature is quite fresh - and indeed the whole picture is scarcely dry.' ⁷

Blue and Silver: Dieppe, photograph, 1948?

Blue and Silver: Dieppe, New Britain Museum of American Art

The paint at the edge of the panel at left has been slightly abraded.

History

Provenance

• 1897/1899: sold by the artist to Amy Lowell (1874-1925);
• 1925: bequeathed on 1 May 1925 to her nephew George Putnam (1889–1960), Boston;
• 1947: sold by him to Alexis (Alix) W. Stanley (1872-1953), New York;
• 1948: bought from Macbeth, New York dealers, by the New Britain Museum of American Art.

It was sold for 120 guineas, when barely dry, by Whistler to the author Amy Lowell (1874-1925) of Brookline, MA, who was then staying at 2 Clarges Street, Piccadilly. Whistler added that she could return it if it did not suit her: 'Will you permit me to add that if, in this great haste you feel that more time would have given you better chance for consideration, you will not hesitate to send back the little work - and on your next visit to London - or to Paris you shall come and arrange more at your leisure.' ⁸

Her nephew George Putnam, living at 89 Beacon Street, Boston, confirmed in 1945 that he had inherited the seascape from his aunt, the poet Amy Lowell. ⁹

Exhibitions

• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 85) as 'Blue and silver – Dieppe'.

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

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. 499), plate 321, as 'Blue and Silver: Dieppe'.

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. 85) as 'Blue and silver – Dieppe'.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• None.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Oils, Water-colors, Drawings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1934 (cat. no. 12).
• Sweet, Frederick A., James McNeill Whistler, Art Institute of Chicago and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, 1968 (cat. no. 38).
• Whistler. Themes and Variations, Stanford University Museum of Art and the Galleries of the Claremont Colleges, Montgomery Art Gallery, Pomona College, Claremont; Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, 1978 (cat. no. 56).
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 130-31 (cat. no. 13), repr. p. 131.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• 'Beyond Whistler’s Mother', 6 January 2011, New Britain Museum of American Art website at https://nbmaa.wordpress.com.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 413).

Other

• None.