1943.173: Nocturne in Black and Gold: Rag Shop, Chelsea

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1943.173

People

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)

Title

Nocturne in Black and Gold: Rag Shop, Chelsea

Other Titles

Former Title: Nocturne: Chelsea Rags
Former Title: Nocturne in Brown and Gold--Chelsea Rags

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

c. 1878

Places

Creation Place: North America, United States

Culture

American

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/230332

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

38.1 x 52.5 cm (15 x 20 11/16 in.)
framed: 63.8 x 78.1 x 6.4 cm (25 1/8 x 30 3/4 x 2 1/2 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• label: verso, bottom left of frame, serrated edges, black printed text: 20
• label: verso, left stretcher bar, round with serrated edges, under paper backing, black ink: E.328
• inscription: verso, middle stretcher bar, printed in black ink: Scott & Fowles / 680 Fifth Avenue / NEW YORK / No.[handwritten, brown ink:] 807
• label: verso, top stretcher bar, typewritten text: "As the light fades and the shadows deepen, all the petty and exacting / details vanish; everythign trivial disappears, and I see things as they / are, in great, strong masses; the button are lost, the garment re- / mains; the garment is los, but the sitter remains; the sitter is lost, / but the shadow remainds; the shadow is lost, but the picture reamins. And / that, night cannot efface from the painter's imagination." Whister Stor- / ies by Don C. Seitz p. 120

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Purchased from the artist by J.J. Cowan, Edinburgh, 1899 (?), [his sale, London, July 2, 1926]; to Mason. [Scott and Fowles, New York], sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, January 20, 1930, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.173

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

• Thomas R. Way, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation, George Bell and Sons, Ltd. (London, England, 1903), p. 64, reproduced opposite p. 64
• Elisabeth Luther Cary, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study with a Tentative List of the Artist's Work, Moffat, Yard and Company (New York, 1907), no. 436, p. 221
• Bernhard Sickert, Whistler, Duckworth & Co. (London, England, 1908), p. 162, no. 82
• Denys Sutton, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolors, Phaidon Press (London, England, 1966), p. 192, reproduced p. 78
• Donald Holden, Whistler Landscapes and Seascapes, Watson-Guptill Publications (New York, NY, 1969), p. 48, reproduced in color plate 14
• Andrew McLaren Young and Margaret F. MacDonald, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, Yale University Press (New Haven, 1980), p. 118, no. 204
• Robin Spencer, ed., Whistler: A Retrospective, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. (New York, NY, 1989), reproduced in color, pl. 59, p. 188
• Chikashi Kitazaki and Mina Oya, ed., Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Ueno, 2002), pp. 220-221, cat. #69, color repr.
• Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), pp. 472-73, cat. 216
• Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), pp. 488-489, cat. 216, ill.
• Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 414, cat. no. 442, reproduced in color
• David Park Curry, Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change, exh. cat., Colby College Museum of Art (Waterville, ME, 2023), pp. 77, 80, fig. 56

Exhibition History

• "Notes" - "Harmonies" - "Nocturnes", Dowdeswell Gallery, London
• "Notes"--"Harmonies"--"Nocturnes", Dowdeswell Gallery, London, 01/01/1884 - 12/31/1884
• Twelfth Summer Exhibition, New Gallery, London, 04/24/1899 - 08/07/1899
• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler: First President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, London, 02/22/1905 - 04/15/1905
• Inaugural Loan Exhibition, Kirkcaldy Art Gallery, Edinburgh, 01/01/1925 - 12/31/1925
• Shades of Significance: Tonal Value in Abstract Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 12/11/1993 - 02/25/1996
• A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, 03/15/2003 - 05/26/2003; National Gallery, London, 06/25/2003 - 09/14/2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
• For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004

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