The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Blue and Silver: Boat Entering Pourville was probably painted in 1899.

Blue and Silver: Boat Entering Pourville, Freer Gallery of Art

It probably dates from Whistler's visit to the French coast between July and September 1899. ¹

Images

Subject

Titles

Only two titles have been suggested:

• 'Blue & Silver - The incoming steamer' (1900, Whistler). ²
• 'Blue and Silver – Boat entering Pourville' (1901, Goupil). ³
• 'Blue and Silver: Boat entering Pourville' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

The preferred title, 'Blue and Silver: Boat entering Pourville', is based on that in the Goupil show, with punctuation regularised to conform with other titles.

Description

Blue and Silver: Boat Entering Pourville, Freer Gallery of Art

A beach scene in horizontal format. In the foreground is a grey beach, with a few figures at the water's edge at left and in the centre and a crowd of people at right. A steamer is seen in the distance at right, on a calm pale blue sea, under a grey sky.

Site

Pourville-sur-Mer, near Dieppe, on the coast of France in Normandy. It had developed from a fishing village to be a popular holiday destination. Artists such as Claude Oscar Monet (1840-1926) worked there from the 1880s on. It was easily reached by the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe as well as from Paris.

Whistler was convalescing with his in-laws, the Birnie Philips, at the Pavillon Madeleine, Pourville-sur-Mer, in August 1899. He wrote in the autumn to the artist Albert Ludovici, Jr (1852-1932):

'September & October are clearly the months for the sea -

I am just beginning to understanding the principle of these things - You know how I always reduce things to principles! ...

I could not help thinking of your two French painters who thought they had something new in Renoir! - and who looked with contempt upon le "vieux tableau"! -

"Plein air" indeed! - I should like to show you one or two little panels!' ⁵

The reference to Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is not entirely clear, but may refer to such vivid seascapes as Renoir's Sea and cliffs (ca 1885, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1975.1.200). Whistler had a poor opinion of Renoir's work: in 1891 he had described those on exhibition at Durand-Ruel's as 'simply childish.' ⁶

Technique

Technique

Blue and Silver: Boat Entering Pourville, Freer Gallery of Art

The panel was prepared with a grey ground. The scene was painted with a tiny brush in muted colours, but in a bold and dashing style, with a streaky blending of colours in details like the boat coming in to harbour. While brushstrokes swept smoothly right across the panel to depict sky and sea, the figures were painted with crude blobs and short, sharp dashes. Curry describes the technique as an 'extremely loose and unusually smudgy handling of pigment.' ⁷

Conservation History

It was cleaned and 'resurfaced' in 1923, cleaned and varnished in 1937, and resurfaced and cradled in 1938. It was again resurfaced in 1952-1953. ⁸

Frame

The frame was regilded in 1960.

History

Provenance

• 1900: sold by the artist to David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) of Goupil's, London art dealers;
• 1901/1904: James Staats Forbes (1823-1904), London;
• 1904: with Obach & Co., London art dealers;
• 1904: bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C.L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

In 1900 Whistler sold 'Blue & Silver - The incoming steamer' to D. C. Thomson for 150 guineas. ⁹ It is not known when exactly J. S. Forbes bought it; it was probably sold by his executors to Obach & Co.

In 1904 Freer noted that a 'Marine - Blue, late, group on beach, boat and smoke [in distance]' from Forbes' collection was with Obach's in London, and he left an offer for it. ¹⁰ In July 1904 he bought it for £200 plus 10 per cent commission.

Exhibitions

• 1901: Spring Exhibition, Goupil Gallery, London, 1901 (cat. no. 34) as 'Blue and Silver – Boat entering Pourville'.

It was described in 1901 by the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser as a 'dainty exercise.' ¹¹

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. 524), plate 336, as 'Blue and Silver: Boat Entering Pourville'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Spring Exhibition, Goupil Gallery, London, 1901 (cat. no. 34) as 'Blue and Silver – Boat entering Pourville'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'At the Goupil Gallery', Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, Manchester, 4 March 1901, p. 4.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Lane, James W., Whistler, (American Artists Series), New York, 1942, repr. pl. 92.

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 (04.162).
• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 155, 296, pl. 65.

Journals 1906-Present

• Ladies Home Journal, vol. 43/1, February 1926, p. 212, repr. p. 19.
• Hobbs, Susan, 'A Connoisseur's Vision: The American Collection of Charles Lang Freer', American Art Review, vol. 4, August 1977, pp. 76-101, at p. 97.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.162a-b.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 414).

Other

• None.