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Gallery Text

An American living in Britain, Whistler was among the most progressive artists in the West in the late nineteenth century. He believed that works of art should function as musical compositions, through evocation and suggestion rather than description. With its muted, blue-gray tones and diluted paints, Nocturne in Blue and Silver exemplifies the artist’s radically reductive style. Though the painting depicts an industrial section of the Thames, it is less a record of a place than an exploration of atmosphere, color, and tone.

Whistler’s break with the highly detailed, carefully constructed narrative paintings of his contemporaries raised the ire of period critics. In 1877, British writer and critic John Ruskin lambasted Whistler for this and related paintings, accusing him of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” In response, Whistler sued Ruskin for libel. After a much-publicized trial, he won the case, but was awarded only one farthing in damages.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.176
People
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
Title
Nocturne in Blue and Silver
Other Titles
Former Title: Nocturne in Blue and Silver No. 1
Former Title: Nocturne in Blue and Silver No. 5
Former Title: Nocturne in Blue and Silver: Cremorne Lights
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1871-1872
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/299838

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2700, European and American Art, 19th century, Impressionism and the Late Nineteenth Century
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on wood panel
Dimensions
44.5 x 61 cm (17 1/2 x 24 in.)
frame: 64.8 x 81.3 x 7.6 cm (25 1/2 x 32 x 3 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r.: Butterfly monogram

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Presented by Whistler to Frances (Mrs. Frederick R.) Leyland, before November 1872; acquired by Hunt Henderson after her death, after 1910; his bequest to Tulane University, 1939; its sale to Grenville L. Winthrop through Macdonald Gallery, New York, April 1941; his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.176
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. 60, reproduced opposite p. 60
  • Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, J. B. Lippincott/W. Heinemann (Philadelphia, PA and London, England, 1908), vol. I, p. 234, 239-240, repr. vol I p. 236
  • Bernhard Sickert, Whistler, Duckworth & Co. (London, England, 1908), no. 45, p. 156
  • Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, J. B. Lippincott and Co. (Philadelphia, PA, 1921), reproduced opposite p. 120
  • Edgar P. Richardson, "'Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket' by Whistler", The Art Quarterly (Winter 1947), pp. 2-11, ill. p. 11
  • Fogg Art Museum and Benjamin Rowland, Jr., Real and Ideal in American Art, exh. cat. (Cambridge, MA, Summer 1948), cat. 24
  • Tom Prideaux, The World of Whistler: 1834-1903, Time-Life Books (New York, NY, 1970), p. 109
  • Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1972), cat. 92, ill.
  • Stanley Weintraub, Whistler: A Biography, Weybright and Talley (New York, NY, 1974), p. 143
  • Andrew McLaren Young and Margaret F. MacDonald, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, Yale University Press (New Haven, 1980), vol. I, p. 69, no. 113 and color reproduction vol. II, pl 107
  • Caroline A. Jones, Modern Art at Harvard: The Formation of the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press, 1985). With an essay by John Coolidge and a preface by John M. Rosenfield. To accompany the inaugural exhibition at the Sackler Museum, Oct 21 1985 - Jan 5 1986, reproduced in color p. 54, fig. 46
  • Robin Spencer, ed., Whistler: A Retrospective, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. (New York, NY, 1989), reproduced in color pl. 41, p. 138
  • Linda Merrill, A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in Whistler v. Ruskin, Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, D.C., 1992), reproduced in color pl. 4
  • Kathleen Pyne, "Whistler and the Politics of the Urban Picturesque", American Art, National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C., Summer 1994 - Fall 1994), vol. 8, pp. 61-77, p. 74, reproduced b/w
  • Timothy Anglin Burgard, American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1994), pp. 4, 5, 11, fig. 4, cat. 34
  • Laurence Madeline, "L'art de se faire des ennemis", Beaux Arts Magazine (January 1995), pp.50-51, ill. p. 50
  • John Siewert, "Suspended Spectacle: Whistler's Falling Rocket and the Nocturnal Subject", Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Institute of Arts Founders Society (Detroit, MI, 1995), vol. 69, nos, 1/2, pp. 37-48, p. 38
  • Isabelle Enaud Lechien, James Whistler: Le paintre et le polémiste, ACR PocheCouleur (Paris, France, 1995), pp. 60-65, reproduced in color p. 63
  • Christopher Newall, The Grosvenor Gallery Exhibitions: Change and Continuity in the Victorian Art World, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, 1995), p. 135
  • Susan P. Casteras, ed., The Grosvenor Gallery: A Palace of Art in Victorian England, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1996), reproduced in b/w fig. 52 p. 97
  • Martha Tedeschi, "Whistler and the English Print Market", Print Quarterly (London, England, March 1997), vol. XIV, no. I, p. 9, no. 5
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi, The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, 1998), vol. I, pp. 44, 63, fig. 8
  • Linda Merrill, The Peacock Room: A Cultural Biography, Freer Gallery of Art / Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1998), reproduced in color, fig. 3.9, p. 126
  • 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. 218-219, cat. #68, 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. 466-67, cat. 212, ill.
  • Linda Merrill, After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, exh. cat., SDZ (Belgium, 2003), page 69, repr. in color
  • Christopher Riopelle, Harvard's Winthrop Collection: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, exh. cat., National Gallery Company Limited (London, 2003), p. 43, cat. 30, ill.
  • 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.482-83, cat. 212, ill.
  • John Wilmerding, Signs of the Artist: Signatures and Self-expression in American Paintings, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 2003), p.123, fig.98
  • Katharine A. Lochnan, Turner Whistler Monet: Impressionist Visions, exh. cat., Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Ontario, 2004), p. 142, repr. in b/w as fig. 51
  • Charles Brock, Charles Sheeler: Across Media, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art and University of California Press (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2006), p. 15, fig. 7
  • Elizabeth Prettejohn, Art for Art's Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting, Yale University Press (New Haven and London, 2007), p. 179, fig. 94
  • 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. 398-99, cat. no. 429, reproduced in color, p. 399
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), ill. p. 162
  • Marc A. Simpson, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute/Yale University Press (Williamstown, MA, 2008), pp. 4, 9, fig. 1, fig. 2 (detail)
  • Christine Dixon, Ron Radford, and Lucina Ward, Turner to Monet: The Triumph of Landscape Painting, exh. cat., National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (Canberra, Australia, 2008), p. 35; repr. in color as Fig 18.
  • Charles Colbert, Haunted Visions: Spiritualism and American Art, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, 2011), pp. 140-152, repr. p. 141 as fig. 44
  • Greg Stone, Artful Business: 50 Lessons from Creative Geniuses (Boston, 2016), p. 32, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • Unidentified Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, 1877, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 05/01/1877 - 05/31/1877
  • Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, courtesy of the Henderson Family of New Orleans, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, 04/08/1937 - 04/23/1937
  • Real and Ideal in American Art, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/01/1948 - 09/01/1948
  • American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1972 - 06/18/1972
  • Modern Art at Harvard, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/21/1985 - 01/05/1986
  • American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/01/1994 - 12/30/1994
  • The Persistence of Memory: Continuity and Change in American Cultures, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/29/1995 - 05/13/2001
  • 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
  • Re-View: S424-426 Western Art from 1560 to 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/16/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 2700 Impressionism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/14/2017 - 01/01/2050
  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 07/11/2017

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu