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Watercolor of sailboats on the water

Several sailboats float on the water at different distances from the viewer, clustered on the left side of the image. They are painted mostly in tones of dark gray with small touches of red and blue. The water they float on is rendered in two large fields of different hues of gray-blue, lighter in the foreground and darker in the background. The sky above them is pale gray with bluish undertones and several sections of the white paper left unpainted, suggesting light breaking through clouds. The overall effect is of three large “stripes” of gray and blue scattered with silhouetted sailboats.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.332
People
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American (Lowell, MA 1834 - 1903 London, England)
Title
Sailboats in Blue Water
Other Titles
Former Title: Maine
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
c. 1899-1900
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/307972

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2100, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Centuries of Tradition, Changing Times: Art for an Uncertain Age
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Physical Descriptions

Medium
Watercolor on off-white Japanese paper
Dimensions
21.5 x 12.9 cm (8 7/16 x 5 1/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: Gray watercolor, l.r.: butterfly monogram

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Antoine (Mrs. Edwin) Amsinck, Hamburg, possibly from her husband by bequest; her bequest to Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1921; its sale to Galerie Commeter, Hamburg, May 26, 1926; purchased by Grenville L. Winthrop through Martin Birnbaum, December 1, 1927; 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
1943.332
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

  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), p. 243
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., American Master Drawings and Watercolors: A History of Works on Paper from Colonial Times to the Present, Harper & Row (New York, NY, 1976), p. 223, fig. 183
  • Kate F. Jennings, American Watercolors, Crescent Books (New York, NY, 1995), p. 41
  • Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1995), p.p. 571 - 573, no. 1593, reproduced
  • 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. 436-437, cat. no. 463, reproduced in color

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/24/2023 - 11/04/2024

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