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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

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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

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