Nocturne Blue and Gold Fig 21 Pg 21

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Date: 1871
Collection: Tate Britain, London
Accession Number: T01571
Medium: oil
Support: wood
Size: 50.2 x 60.8 cm (19 3/4 x 24")
Signature: butterfly
Inscription: '71'
Frame: Flat Whistler, painted 'seigaiha' & butterfly, 1871 [11.4 cm]

Date

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea dates from 1871, and it is signed and dated '71'. ¹

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Tate Britain

According to Whistler's mother, Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881), one afternoon in the summer of 1871 she was not strong enough to sit for her portrait (Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother y101) so Whistler took her for a trip down the Thames. When they returned, as she wrote:

'the river in a glow of rare transparency an hour before sunset, he was inspired to begin a picture & rushed upstairs to his studio, carrying an easel & brushes, soon I was helping by bringing the several tubes of paint he pointed out that he should use & I so fascinated I hung over his magic touches til the bright moon faced us from the window and I exclaimed oh Jemie dear it is yet light enough for you to see to make this a moonlight picture of the Thames.

I never in London saw such a clear atmosphere as this. … So now Kate I send you by this mail steamer an ["]Athenaeum" a weekly paper with a criticism on these two pictures exhibited now in "The Dudley Gallery" it is so true. The Moonlight is not more lovely than Sunset tho the Critique gives it only the mede [sic] of praise.' ²

The 'Moonlight' described by Mrs Whistler was exhibited in London at the Dudley Gallery in 1871 (cat. no. 265) as 'Harmony in Blue-Green – Moonlight' and is considered to have been Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103, the painting under discussion. The other picture was Variations in Violet and Green y104.

Images

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Tate Britain

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Tate Britain

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, frame detail

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, X-ray

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Infra red

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, UV light

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, photograph, 1892, Goupil Album, GUL Whistler PH5/2

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, photograph, before 1903, Мир искусства [Mir Iskusstva, 'World of Art'], vol. 9, 1903, repr. p. 66

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Harmony in Blue-Green – Moonlight' (1871, Dudley). ³
• 'Nocturne Blue and Green; Nocturne Bleu-Vert' (1870s, Whistler). ⁴
• 'Nocturne. Blue & Silver' (1892, Whistler). ⁵
• 'Nocturne, Blue and Green' (1905, ISSPG). ⁶
• 'Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea' (1980, YMSM). ⁷

'Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea' is the preferred title.

The series of 'Nocturnes in Blue and Silver' was first mentioned in 1876-1877 when Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge y140 was listed as Number 5. The next to be numbered was Number 3 (Nocturne in Blue and Silver y118) in 1878. The painting under discussion here, Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103, which dates from earlier than either of these, was not listed as the first in the series until 1884. There may well have been a 'Nocturne in Blue and Silver, No. 2' and a No. 4, but there is no record of these titles. Little reliance can be placed on Whistler's numbering!

Description

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Tate Britain

A view across a river, in horizontal format. The shore in the foreground is at a slight diagonal from lower left up to right. A figure stands on the shore at right, holding over his shoulder a pole with a net or flag draped over it. At left, a long lighter or small barge, very low in the water, is moored near the shore, with a small light towards the bow, reflected in the water. Across the river are the silhouettes of buildings and a square tower, which casts a long reflection at right. In the foreground, to right of centre, is a rectangular cartouche with a stylised butterfly and '71' painted on it.

Site

The River Thames, London. If this is the painting described by Whistler's mother, then it was a view of Battersea on the south side of the river, from Whistler's house in Chelsea. However, the tower in the distance at right, reflected in the water, has not been identified. It may be that Whistler exaggerated the height of an existing warehouse or that he moved a feature from one part of the riverside to another. There were chemical works and other factories, wharves, timber yards and saw mills, flower mills and St Mary's Church along that shore. The church, completed in 1777, has a tower surmounted by a small spire, so the tower in his painting cannot be that church.

On the other hand, if the nocturne was painted from the Battersea shore, looking towards Chelsea (and was not the picture described by Mrs Whistler), then the tower could be the clocktower of Old Chelsea Church. Whistler painted this several times but he usually included the clock.

Comments

Frances Fowle comments:

'In the foreground, a low barge and the figure of a fisherman are indicated with the minimum of detail, and the influence of Japanese art is evident in the restricted palette, the economy of line and the characteristic butterfly signature.' ⁸

Technique

Technique

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Tate Britain

It is painted on a dark grey ground. The brush left long ribbons of thin, creamy paint right across the canvas from side to side, painted smoothly and evenly to give a feeling both of space and of movement, and employing a limited range of cool, luminous colour.

In 1892 Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) wrote that the 'the sweep of the brush horizontally across the whole' was 'charming'. ⁹

Marc Simpson comments, 'the "valuable and true speech" of painting includes the wit of Whistler's brushwork, the horizontal strokes that merge virtuosic handling with literal depiction, the brush-strokes leaving tracks in the paste-like paint to mime the river's rippling currents.' ¹⁰ These slightly wavering 'horizontal sweeps of the brush', as Elizabeth Prettejohn observes, 'might be described rather as an allusion to the rippling of the water than as a representation of it.' ¹¹

The details of the barge, the figure and the butterfly were superimposed on the water, in slightly thinner paint (less 'paste-like', and more like watercolour).

A detailed report by Professor Joyce H. Townsend, done at Tate Britain, adds valuable details on the technique, condition and conservation of the painting:

'The support for this painting is a thin, warp-free, hardwood panel, probably mahogany. Such a support gives a very smooth surface, less textured than a fine canvas. It is so thinly painted that the wood grain can be seen when it is viewed from a raking angle.

This panel was thinly primed on the reverse, with light grey oil-based paint including lead white, bone black, vermilion, and an unidentified blue pigment. Whistler may well have applied this, since it is a mixture he often used, and his foresight has contributed to the flatness of the panel, which otherwise would tend to warp concave on the paint-free side.

The front has a more conventional but thin white priming of lead white and oil, applied over a glue size, likely before its sale. Whistler added a thin and fairly dark grey imprimatura to the whole panel, which significantly affects the perceived colour of the blue paints, making them appear cooler by contrast. It is less thinly applied in the area of the foreground shore and probably also for the distant shore, that is, it was used to block them onto the otherwise uniform mid grey imprimatura. Highly diluted with turpentine, this paint ran down the sides of the panel in places.

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, X-ray

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, UV light

A digital X-radiograph of the panel shows the marginally thicker paint used for the sky and water, but otherwise reveals only shadows of the composition. Not even the butterfly signature is rendered clearly. Neither the X-radiograph nor the infrared image suggest any previous use of the panel.

Heating of a paint fragment suggested that natural resin might be included in the paint medium, while its fluorescence in ultraviolet light suggested heat-treated oil. Analysis of the paint medium (at the then Institut Collectie Nederland, Amsterdam, in 2001) indicated linseed oil and a trace of beeswax or paraffin wax in the lightest blue paint of the water.

It is likely that Whistler would have added medium modifier to the paint, as well as large amounts of turpentine to dilute it, to provide physical thinness for the single paint layer, and to prevent it forming drips and runs that would fatally distract from the horizontal brushstrokes. The latter additive makes paint dry matte, while the former counteracts this by restoring the glossy appearance of less-thinned oil tube paint. The very thinness of the paint layer rendered the other ingredients of the medium modifier undetectable by materials analysis: from the analysis of other works, these might have included mastic resin and copal resin, cooked with added drying oil, usually linseed oil, as a commercial megilp. The linseed oil may be evidence for this, since white and light blue paints supplied in tubes were often bound in poppyseed oil rather than linseed, because poppyseed oil was thought to yellow less, and thus not to spoil the appearance of these particularly pale colours. The detected traces of wax were probably not added by Whistler: they were common additives in tube paints by this date, to provide a longer shelf life.

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Infra red

The horizontal brushstrokes for the water all sweep inwards, and were made with a brush with stiffish hairs. The infrared image illustrates the deeper texture of the brushstroke, and suggests they were swept successively from left to right, then back in the opposite direction, for the water. Most span the whole width of the panel. Raking light reveals that the water, and the sky and its light clouds, were painted up to and just over the darker shores defined by blocking in with the paint of the imprimatura. The lights and reflections were made with a long, soft brush, onto just-dry paint, and many were wiped after brushing. They nonetheless have considerably thicker paint than any other areas.

There were some small paint losses in the right of the sky, a vertical scratch in the centre of the water, and a spot in the lower right foreground where Whistler painted over a knot in the panel. The paint that retouched the losses and the scratch is similar, and all these retouchings are likely his. They had all grown yellow with age by the 1990s, when they were themselves retouched following varnish removal, to prevent them from standing out too obtrusively. ¹²

Lead white and bone black are found everywhere, with traces of vermilion, madder and a dull red ochre. Synthetic ultramarine, Prussian blue and madder were added to make the imprimatura that forms the cool blue foreground, but there is Prussian blue alone in the paint of the sky. The water includes cobalt blue and a distinct red lake from the madder, this blue giving it a greener tone. ¹³

The lights on the farther shore were applied with a pale cream paint made from lead white and yellow ochre, with added red lake, possibly that used for the water, a transparent red ochre, and possibly gamboge, a transparent yellow pigment use in oil paints at this time, but previously more used for watercolour painting. Here Whistler may have added turpentine but no megilp-like medium modifier, causing a fine-scale 'orange-peel' effect as the paint dried. There is no unmodified tube paint to be seen on this work.

Whistler's fingerprints can be seen on the short sides, where he handled the panel before he put it aside while the paint dried. They are now filled in lightly with dirt.' ¹⁴

Conservation History

Joyce H. Townsend reports further:

'The conservation history is not documented: indeed there may not have been any treatment carried out in the past. The original natural resin-type varnish, with fainter impressions of fingerprints, applied thickly with a brush, may well have been present until the 1990s. By then it was yellowed to such a degree that 'blue-green' would have seemed a more suitable title, its brush application making the yellowness very streaky. This varnish was removed by Stephen Hackney at Tate during the 1990s, which enabled the cool blues of water and sky to be seen to advantage, and also made much more sense of the several titles involving the word "silver" given to the painting. The varnish was replaced with a non-yellowing synthetic one, the acrylic resin Paraloid B-71. Since then the painting has not required any further conservation treatment.' ¹⁵

Frame

• 1871: Flat Whistler frame with painted seigaiha and butterfly; paint on gold leaf (oil gilding) on wood (oak on pine). [11.4 cm]. 68.5 x 82.5 x 4.5 cm. Frame possibly made by Frederick Fox.

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Tate Britain

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, frame detail

This is perhaps Whistler's prototype for the frames he developed throughout the 1870's. The butterfly signifies Whistler's intention for the frame to be an extension of the painting. The irregular slip-frame next to the painting is original.

The painted seigaiha pattern of overlapping blue waves was inspired by Japanese prints, but has now discoloured and looks browner, rather than light blue. It corresponds to another pattern under the gilding and it is likely Whistler had the frame redecorated.

The patterns were sometimes painted on the frames by Walter Greaves (1846-1930), who was Whistler's studio assistant during the early 1870s. During the preparations for the 1871 Dudley Gallery exhibition, Whistler was visiting Speke Hall, the Liverpool home of his patron Fredrick Leyland, and was unable to supervise the hanging of his canvases. While there, Whistler wrote to Greaves:

I am very glad you and Harry [Greaves] have been to the Dudley - and that the two "harmonies" look swell among the crowd – Have they managed to fit in the little gold flat you know that Clay took down to the Gallery and that they wouldn't let him put in the frame, but fixed it in themselves? Does it look all right? They have not taken off too much of the butterfly have they?' ¹⁶

Thus, even when absent from London, Whistler displayed a genuine concern about the framing and presentation of his artwork. It is not known why the flat mentioned by Whistler was required, but this added liner still surrounds the painting today. The innermost gilded edge, which is closest to the painting's surface, is uneven. The right and left-hand sides are wider than the top and bottom. Perhaps this uneven edge resulted from the Dudley Gallery inserting the flat in such a way that Whistler's butterfly signature, located at the bottom-centre of the canvas, was not covered up. In the same letter, Whistler mentioned painting at the seaside,

'I hoped to be able to find some grand greys and great masses of waves that I might spread over a couple of small canvasses with the true waterman's jerk, and send up for you both to hang and put in the patern [sic] when the frames which poor Fox would be unable to make should have come from Foord & Dickinson.' ¹⁷

Here, Whistler revealed significant insights into the framing of his early 1870s works. The pattern he mentioned could be interpreted as either the painted seigaiha or basket-weave pattern. Whistler also mentions two frame-makers by name. He implied that Fredrick Fox would have difficulties making these frames for some reason, and that Foord & Dickinson would make them instead. This off-hand remark is Whistler's first mention of Foord & Dickinson. It is possible that the two frames on Variations in Violet and Green and Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, both seen at the Dudley Gallery in 1871, were made by Fredrick Fox, but for future frames he proposed to hire Foord & Dickinson.

The art critic Thomas Taylor (1817-1880) mentioned Whistler's frames and stated:

'The colour, consistently with the theory of the painter, is carried out into the frames by means of delicate diapering and ripplings of faint greens and moony blues on their gold, and the Japanese influence in which the painter delights is carried even to the introduction of the coloured cartouche.' ¹⁸

Taylor's observations of Whistler's frames are among the earliest made by the press, and his mention of the 'delicate diapering and rippling' could describe both the basket-weave and the seigaiha patterns. He went on to comment on the presence of the butterfly signatures on the frames, saying, 'Mr. Whistler has introduced his own monogram or symbol in this way, carefully attuning the colour of the cartouche to the dominant harmony of his picture.' ¹⁹

These comments describe the incorporated butterfly on Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea more accurately than the haphazard insect floating on Variations in Violet and Green. This further supports the possibility that the butterfly on Variations in Violet and Green was added to the surface after its initial creation. While visitors to the Dudley Gallery in 1871 may have seen both forms of decoration, it is most likely that the seigaiha pattern on Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea is in an untouched state, and was the subject of Taylor's comments.

History

Provenance

• 1871: William Cleverly Alexander (1840-1916), London;
• 1916: on his death, passed to the his daughters, the Misses Rachel Alexander (1875-1964) and Jean Ingelow Alexander (1877-1972);
• 1972: bequeathed by Miss Rachel and Miss Jean Alexander to the National Gallery and transferred in the same year to the Tate Gallery.

It was exhibited at the Dudley Gallery, London, in 1871 (cat. no. 265), priced at £210, and bought from the exhibition by W. C. Alexander. Whistler's mother mentioned the purchase :

'Did I not write you of a Moonlight picture of this river exhibited in the Dudley Gallery last Autumn? We have formed a friendship with Mr Alexander & his family since he bought that in June. he is a Banker ... [of] the firm of "Alexander & Cunliffe".' ²⁰

Exhibitions

• 1871: 5th Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil, under the Management of the Committee of the Dudley Gallery, London, 1871 (cat. no. 265) as 'Harmony in Blue-Green – Moonlight'.
• 1879: III Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1879 (cat. no. 192) as 'Nocturne in Blue-Green'.
• 1883: Possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 1883 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.
• 1884: Probably Exposition internationale de peinture et de sculpture, Société des XX, Brussels, 1884 (cat. no. 2) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent, No. 1'.
• 1892: Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 18) as 'Nocturne, Blue and Silver – Chelsea'.
• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 31) as 'Nocturne, Blue and Green'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 72) 'Nocturne en bleu et vert. – (Nocturne in Blue and Green.)'.

It was exhibited as a 'Harmony' and, at the same time, a 'Moonlight' in 1871, and it was rechristened and shown as a 'Nocturne' from 1879 on.

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, Tate Britain

1871: On 11 October 1871 the artist Edward John Poynter (1836-1919) wrote to Whistler apologising that he had not arrived at the Dudley Gallery in time to help hang this painting and Variations in Violet and Green y104:

'One of yours is properly placed, but the other "the moon-light"seems to have riled the hangers for they have placed it badly. ...

If you think my opinion worth anything, perhaps you will allow me to say how very much I admire both the paintings, but especially the moonlight, which renders the poetical side of the scene better than any moonlight picture I ever saw. I wish I had been there to see justice done to it.' ²¹

Whistler asked Walter Greaves (1846-1930) about the exhibition:

'You tell me in your letter that you had seen someone who was pleased with the appearance of the two pictures in the Dudley - but by this time I suppose you have both been there and so you must write me a line and tell us all about it! how they stand their ground and the impression they seem to produce and the rest of it - I suppose there is as yet nothing in the papers about the gallery - I have seen nothing myself.' ²²

Walter and his brother Henry Greaves (1843-1904) went to the Dudley and reported favourably. Whistler replied: 'I am very glad you and Harry have been to the Dudley - and that the two "harmonies" look swell among the crowd.' ²³

This was the first exhibition in which Whistler exhibited a 'Nocturne', although none were described with that title until the following year (Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Southampton Water y117 and Nocturne in Blue and Silver y118). The Athenaeum, cited by Whistler's mother (see above), praised 'its exquisite harmony in chromatics.' ²⁴ The Dudley exhibition included both Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea y103 and Variations in Violet and Green y104, and a review that appeared in The Times in 1871 was perhaps the most sensitive and truly appreciative account of Whistler's ideas to be published:

'They are illustrative of the theory, not confined to this painter, but most conspicuously and ably worked out by him, that painting is so closely akin to music that the colours of the one may and should be used, like the ordered sounds of the other, as means and influences of vague emotion; that painting should not aim at expressing dramatic emotions, depicting incidents of history, or recording facts of nature, but should be content with moulding our moods and stirring our imaginations, by subtle combinations of colour through which all that painting has to say to us can be said, and beyond which painting has no valuable or true speech whatever. These pictures are illustrations of this theory. They contain the least possible amount of objects, nothing, in fact, beyond the faintest indications of river surface under moonlight, a dim mass of faintly lighted building closing the high horizon, and reflected in the water, and, for foreground objects ... a scarcely intelligible barge and faint figure of a mudlark ... The only way to explain the perspective of the pictures is to suppose them painted from a high window. The colour, consistently with the theory of the painter, is carried out into the frames by means of delicate diaperings and ripplings of faint greens and moony blues on their gold, and the Japanese influence in which the painter delights is carried even to the introduction of the coloured cartouche, which on the Japanese screen bears the address of the painter or seller. Mr. Whistler has introduced his own monogram or symbol in this way, carefully attuning the colour of the cartouche to the dominant harmony of his picture. With all the apparent slightness of the work, the management of colour all through is governed by the subtlest calculation, and the gradation and juxtaposition of delicate tones appeal to the finest chromatic susceptibles ... Mr. Whistler's portfolio of Etchings ... which takes rank with the best modern work of the kind ... shows that his avoidance of precise delineation in these pictures is calculated, and not the result of any want of drawing power.' ²⁵

Parts of this review match Whistler's ideas so closely that they might almost have been dictated by him. ²⁶ Reviews varied greatly: The Examiner on 28 October praised Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea and Variations in Violet and Green y104 as 'two experiments in the combination of colour … wonderful things', but on 10 November 1871 the Morning Advertiser dismissed them as 'eccentric productions' and mere 'smudges'.

1879: By contrast, when it was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879, under its new title, 'Nocturne in Blue-Green', The Mask published a cartoon with this nocturne drawn almost entirely in horizontal lines, with no recognisable features at all. ²⁷ However, other journalists approved of it, in qualified terms, describing it, for instance, as 'a really beautiful river piece full of sentiment and poetry, that shows what Whistler used to paint before fortune smiled upon and spoiled him.' ²⁸ In the aftermath of the Whistler v. Ruskin trial and his bankruptcy, it is assumed that this comment was ironic.

1881: Théodore Duret (1838-1927) described a 'Nocturne en bleu et or, no. 1' as typical of Whistler's Nocturnes, and the description fits this painting:

'L'impression que l'artiste veut fixer sur la toile est celle du clair de lune par une belle nuit. Il a choisi comme sujet une rivière avec ses bords, parce qu'aprés tout il lui faut bien un motif pour porter la couleur .. [Et] ce qui est appelé à communiquer aux yeux l'effet que le peintre veut rendre, ce ne sont ni des lignes ni des contours, mais la gamme générale de tons bleus argentés qui, avec des inflexions de clair et d'ombre, couvre toute la toile ... il n'y a que deux choses sans contours et sans formes arrêtées, mais fort saisissables cependant, et arrivant même à produire une impression puissante de l'air et une gamme de tons délicate et vibrante.' ²⁹

1883-1884: It may have been shown at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1883 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent' (but see Nocturne in Blue and Silver y151).

It may also have been the 'little Nocturne blue & silver' that Whistler asked Charles William Deschamps (1848-1908) to retrieve from his studio, insure, and send to the exhibition of the Société des XX in Brussels in 1884, and not only that, but arrange for it to be framed on its arrival. If so, it was rechristened as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent, No. 1' (cat. no. 2) (which is what Duret had called the painting that he had described in 1881). ³⁰ In Brussels, it was described poetically in La Libre Revue: 'La Nocturne paraît vu à travers une gaze tissée avec des rayons de lune. Il évoque dans son air bleu une vision féerique ... la Shakespeare, mais plus tendre, plus diaphane, plus fluide encore.' ³¹

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea, photograph, 1892, Goupil Album, GUL Whistler PH5/2

1892: For the catalogue of Whistler's important retrospective at the Goupil Gallery, he selected two earlier reviews to accompany this painting:

' "Mr. Whistler confines himself to two small canvases of the nocturne kind. One is covered with smudgy blue and the other with dirty black." Saturday Review.

A reputation, for a time, imperilled by original absurdity." ̶ F. Wedmore, "Academy."

'I think Mr. Wedmore takes the Nocturnes and Arrangements too seriously. They are merely first beginnings of pictures, differing from ordinary first beginnings in having no composition. The great originality was in venturing to exhibit them." P. G. Hamerton, " Academy." ' ³²

By contrasting these mocking and brutal criticisms, by Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921) and Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1834-1894), with Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea, Whistler emphasized its light, bright colouring and carefully controlled composition. Whistler also chose a photograph of the painting for reproduction in the Album of photographs produced for sale.

A reviewer at that time agreed entirely with Whistler, citing this painting as 'of particular charm', a 'really exquisite vision of the pale night.' ³³

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. 103) as 'Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea', repr. plate 106.

Authored by Whistler

• Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 18).Reprinted in Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, 2nd edition, London and New York, 1892, pp. 308-09.
• Goupil Gallery and James McNeill Whistler, Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces [portfolio of photographs published after the Goupil Gallery Exhibition, March-April 1892], London, 1892, repr. pl. 21.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 5th Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil, under the Management of the Committee of the Dudley Gallery, London, 1871 (cat. no. 265) as 'Harmony in Blue-Green – Moonlight'.
• III Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1879 (cat. no. 192) as 'Nocturne in Blue-Green'.
• Possibly Exposition Internationale de Peinture, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 1883 (cat. no. 5) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.
• Probably Exposition internationale de peinture et de sculpture, Société des XX, Brussels, 1884 (cat. no. 2) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent, No. 1'.
• Nocturnes, Marines & Chevalet Pieces, Goupil Gallery, London, 1892 (cat. no. 18) as 'Nocturne, Blue and Silver – Chelsea'.
• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 31) as 'Nocturne, Blue and Green'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 72) as 'Nocturne en bleu et vert. – (Nocturne in Blue and Green.)'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'The Dudley Gallery', The Examiner, London, 28 October 1871, pp. 11-12.
• Anon., 'Fine Arts. Oil Pictures at the Dudley Gallery', Illustrated London News, London, 28 October 1871.
• Anon., 'Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures', Morning Advertiser, London, 10 November 1871, pp. 2-3.
• Anon., [Tom Taylor], 'Dudley Gallery. – Cabinet Pictures in Oil', The Times, London, 14 November 1871, p. 4.
• Anon., 'The Grosvenor Gallery', Freeman's Journal, London, 8 May 1879, p. 6.
• Anon., 'A Gaiety in Gilt, and three Noctoffs in a Twinkle. Connie soit qui mal y pense', The Mask, London, vol. 2, 17 May 1879, caricature repr. p. 4.
• Anon., 'London Day by Day', Daily Telegraph and Courier, London, 19 March 1892, p. 5.
• Anon., 'Mr. Whistler's Paintings', London Evening Standard, London, 21 March 1892, p. 3.
• 'Lady's London Letter', Cheltenham Examiner, 6 April 1892, p. 2.

Journals 1855-1905

• 'Fine Arts, Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil,' The Athenaeum, 28 October 1871, p. 565.
• Duret, Théodore, 'James Whistler', Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 23, April 1881, pp. 365-69, at pp. 367-68.
• La Libre Revue, 29 February 1884, p. 254.
• Sickert, Walter Richard, 'Whistler To-day', The Fortnightly Review, vol. 57, new series, vol. 51, April 1892, pp. 543-47, at p. 547.
• Anon., 'Дж. УистлерЪ [Dzh. Uistler]', Мир искусства [Mir Iskusstva, 'World of Art'], vol. 9, 1903, pp. 61-68, repr. p. 66.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist's Works, New York, 1907 (cat. nos. 216, 387).
• Merrill, Linda, A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in 'Whistler v. Ruskin', Washington and London, 1992, pp. 30-31, 85.
• Petri, Grischka, Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler, Hildesheim, 2011, pp. 161, 164, 186, 227, 657.
• Robins, Anna Gruetzner, A Fragile Modernism. Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, London and New Haven, 2007, pp. 19-20, repr. p. 20.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908, p. 146 (cat. nos. 71, 73).
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990
• Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, pp. 101-02, 115, 279.

Books, General

• Corbett, David Peters, The World in Paint: Modern Art and Visuality in England, 1848-1914, 2004, p. 118, repr. fig. 41.
• Prettejohn, Elizabeth, Art for Art's Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 169, 172-75.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1910 (cat. no. 25).
• Loan Collection of Works by James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, 1912 (cat. no. 21).
• New English Art Club Retrospective, Spring Gardens Galleries, London, 1925 (cat. no. 149).
• Exhibition, Glasgow and Huddersfield, 1946.
• Masters of British Painting, New York, St Louis and San Francisco, 1956-1957 (cat. no. 118).
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 26).
• Dorment, Richard, and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1994-1995 (cat. no. 46), repr p. 123.
• Wilton, Andrew, and Robert Upstone (eds), The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910, Tate Gallery, London, 1997 (cat. no. 79), repr. p. 207.
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 68-69, 106, repr. fig. 59 (not exhibited).
• Lochnan, Katharine, Turner, Whistler, Monet, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Tate Britain, London, 2004-2005 (cat. no. 43), repr. p. 149.
• Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 108, 182-82 (cat. no. 7), repr. p. 108.
• Simpson, Marc, 'Whistler, Modernism, and the Creative Afflatus', in Simpson, Marc, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 2008, pp. 24-51, at 29-31, repr. p. 30.
• Calloway, Stephen, and Lynn Federle Orr (eds), The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2011 (no catalogue number).
• MacDonald, Margaret, and Patricia de Montfort, An American in London: Whistler and the Thames, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Addison Gallery of American Art, Freer Gallery of Art, 2013-2014, pp. 27, 32, repr. (not in exhibition).

Journals 1906-Present

• Abbott, K. (ed.) and Whistler, Anna McNeill, 'The Lady of the Portrait, Letters of Whistler's Mother', Atlantic Monthly, vol. 136, 1925, pp. 310-28, p. 327.

Websites

• Frances Fowle, 2000, Tate Britain website at http://www.tate.org.uk.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 71) 'Nocturne – bleu et vert / Nocturne, blue and green / Nocturne, blue and silver, Chelsea'.

Other

• Siewert, John, 'Whistler's Nocturnes and the Aesthetic Subject', PhD thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994,

1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 103).

2: A. M. Whistler to C. J. Palmer, 3-4 November 1871, GUW #10071.

3: 5th Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil, under the Management of the Committee of the Dudley Gallery, London, 1871 (cat. no. 265).

4: Label on verso.

5: Whistler to D. C. Thomson, [4/11 January 1892], GUW #06795.

6: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 31).

7: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 103).

8: Tate website at http://www.tate.org.uk.

9: W. Sickert 1892 [more], at p. 547.

10: Simpson, Marc, 'Whistler, Modernism, and the Creative Afflatus', in Simpson, Marc, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 2008, pp. 24-51, at 29-31. See also Robins 2007 [more], pp. 19-20, emphasizing the 'horizontality of the brushwork'.

11: Prettejohn 2007 [more], p. 173.

12: Around the extreme edges at the short sides and the top, numerous small damages caused by framing have been retouched, but probably after Whistler's lifetime.

13: It is these subtle combinations of different blue pigments that made the painting so difficult to render accurately using late 20th-century colour film: many colour reproductions from that date made the painting look too uniform in tone, and far too reddish a blue, since the film did not register the contribution of the Prussian blue pigment.

14: Joyce H. Townsend, Tate Britain, 2017; Hackney, S., 'Colour and tone in Whistler's "nocturnes" and "harmonies" 1871-72', The Burlington Magazine, 1994, vol. 136, pp. 695-99, at p. 657. Hackney, S., and J. Townsend, 'J. A. M. Whistler: Nocturne in Blue-Green 1871', in Hackney, S., R. Jones, and J. Townsend (eds.), Paint and Purpose: A Study of Technique in British art, Tate Publishing, London, 1999, pp. 152-57.

15: Townsend 2017, ibid.

16: Whistler to W. Greaves, [14 November/December 1871], #11496.

17: Ibid.

18: Anon., [Tom Taylor], 'Dudley Gallery. - Cabinet Pictures in Oil', The Times, London, 14 November 1871, p. 4.

19: Ibid.

20: A. M. Whistler to J. H. Gamble, 5 November 1872, GUW #06552.

21: GUW #05011.

22: [October/November 1871], GUW #11469.

23: Whistler to W. Greaves, [14 November/December 1871], #11496.

24: 'Fine Arts, Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil,' The Athenaeum, 28 October 1871, p. 565.

25: Anon., [Tom Taylor], 'Dudley Gallery. – Cabinet Pictures in Oil', The Times, London, 14 November 1871, p. 4.

26: See his letter to G. A. Lucas, [18 January 1873], GUW #09182.

27: Anon., 'A Gaiety in Gilt, and three Noctoffs in a Twinkle. Connie soit qui mal y pense', The Mask, London, vol. 2, 17 May 1879, repr. p. 4. Press cutting in GUL Whistler LB 11/21.

29: Duret 1881, Whistler [more].

30: Whistler to Deschamps, 8 and [11] January 1884, GUW #07908 and #07909.

31: La Libre Revue, 29 February 1884, p. 254.

32: (cat. no. 18) reprinted in Whistler 1892 [more], pp. 308-09.

33: Anon., 'Mr. Whistler's Paintings', London Evening Standard, London, 21 March 1892, p. 3.

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Source: https://www.whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/printdisplay/?mid=y103

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