Grey and Silver: Old Battersea Reach

1863

James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903)

James McNeill Whistler painted marine scenes throughout his career, including this depiction of the Thames River, which was a frequent subject in Whistler’s work when he lived in London. Here, he focused on the river’s industrial elements: boats and barges, laboring men, and smoking chimneys. Whistler unified the composition with deft brushwork and a subtle palette of brown and gray that anticipated his later interest in delicate tonal harmonies. The painting’s bold realism and thickly painted surface were inspired by French artist Gustave Courbet, whose work Whistler encountered during his stays in Paris in the mid-1850s and 1860s.

Status: On View, Gallery 273
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: James McNeill Whistler
Title: Grey and Silver: Old Battersea Reach
Place: London (Place depicted:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1863
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed recto, bottom-left, on water, in dark paint: "Whistler. 63.".
Dimensions: 50.8 × 68.6 cm (20 × 27 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Honoré and Potter Palmer
Reference Number: 1922.449
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/81574/manifest.json

Copley Society, Loan Collection [of] Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, exh. cat. (Copley Society, 1904), 10, cat. 70, as The Thames.
Elisabeth Luther Cary, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study with a Tentative List of the Artist’s Works (Moffat, Yard and Co., 1907), no. 70, 167.
Bernhard Sickert, Whistler (London: Duckworth & Co., New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1908), nos. 12, 27 and 105.
Joseph and Elizabeth R. Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols. (London: William Heinemann and Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1908), vol. 1, 78–79, 144.
Howard Mansfield, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Drypoints of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, (Chicago, 1909), 57, no. 90.
“Summer at the Institute,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 15, no. 5 (Sept.–Oct. 1921): 158–59 (ill.).
“The Potter Palmer Collection of Paintings,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 16, no. 3 (May 1922), 37–38.
Homer Saint-Gaudens, ed., Survey of American Painting, exh. cat. (Carnegie Institute, Department of Fine Arts, 1940), n.p., cat.
James W. Lane, Whistler (Crown Publishers, 1942), 35, 60.
Andrew McLaren Young, James McNeill Whistler, an Exhibition of Paintings and Other Works, organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain and the English Speaking Union of the United States (Great Britain: W.S. Cowell, 1960), 37–38, no. 8.
Denys Sutton, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler (London: Country Life, 1963), 41–42.
Frederick A. Sweet, James McNeill Whistler (Chicago, 1968), 54–57, no. 4.
John Shapley, ed., The Index of Twentieth Century Artists, 4 vols. (1934; repr. New York: Arno Press, 1970), 182–220.
Roy McMullen, Victorian Outsider: A Biography of J.A.M. Whistler (E.P. Dutton & Co., 1973), 5–97, 114–117, 130–133, 244–247, 262–263.
Judith A. Barter, et al., The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2011), cat. 10.
Margaret F. MacDonald et al., An American in London: Whistler and the Thames, (Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd, 2013), cover (ill.).
Jay A. Clarke and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. 7 (ill.), http://artic.edu/digitalwhistler.
Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, “Grey and Silver: Old Battersea Reach,” The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler: A Catalogue Raisonné, University of Glasgow, accessed June 3, 2020, https://whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/display/?mid=y046 (ill.).

London, England, The Royal Academy of the Arts, Exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts: The Ninety–Ninth, 1867, cat. no. 243, as Battersea.
Paris, France, Palais Royal: Galerie D Orleans, Exposition Universelle De 1867,
London, England, Queen’s Square, College for Working Men and Women, 1889. cat. no. 77, as The Old Battersea Bridge.
London England, Goupil Gallery, Nocturnes, Marines, and Chevalet Pieces: J. McNeil Whistler, Chelsea, cat. no. 36, lent by Madame Coronio.
Boston, Copley Hall, Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler: Oil Paintings, Watercolors, Pastels, and Drawings, Feb. 1904, cat. 70, as The Thames (organized by the Copley Society).
Paris, France, Palais de l’Ecole des Beaux–Arts, Exposition des Oeuvres de James McNeill Whistler, May 1905, cat. no. 58, as Sur la Tamise (On the Thames), lent by Mrs. Potter Palmer.
Chicago, The University of Chicago Renaissance Society, Wieboldt Hall, Summer Exhibition: Sea and Land and City Streets, June 8–Aug. 30, 1933, cat. no. 7.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1934, cat. no. 423.
San Francisco, M.H. DeYoung Memorial Museum, Palace of the Legion of Honor, Exhibition of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings, June 7–July 7, 1935, cat. no. 242, ill.
Richmond, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Main Currents in the Development of American Painting: Inaugural Exhibition of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Jan. 16–Mar. 1, 1936, cat. no. 50, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, Summer Exhibitions, July 20–Oct. 29, 1939, cat. no. 3.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Survey of American Painting, Oct. 24–Dec. 15, 1940, cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, Sargent, Whistler and Mary Cassatt, Jan. 14–Feb. 25, 1954, Frederick Sweet, cat. no. 95; New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mar. 25–May 23, 1954.
Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950, Oct. 1, 1959–Jan. 10, 1960, no cat. [downloadable checklist available].
London, England, The Arts Council Gallery, Sept. 1–24, 1960, James McNeill whistler, An Exhibition of Paintings and Other Works, Andrew McLaren Young, cat. no. 8; New York, The Knoedler Galleries, Nov. 2–30, 1960.
Art Institute of Chicago, James McNeill Whistler, Jan. 13–Feb. 25, 1968, Frederick Sweet, cat. no. 4 as Grey and Silver Battersea Reach; Utica, New York, Munson–Williams–Proctor Institute, Mar. 17–Apr. 28.
Art Institute of Chicago, Whistler: Prints and Paintings, May–Aug. 31, 1979.
Albi, France, Musee Toulouse–Lautrec, Trésors Impression nistes du Musée, Jean Devoisins, June 27–Aug. 31, 1980, cat. no. 57, p. 65, ill. as Gris et argent: Old Battersea Reach.
London, England, Barbican Art Gallery, The Image of London: Views by Travellers and Emigrés, 1550–1920, Malcolm Warner, cat. no. 158, p. 153, ill.
Songs on Stone: James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography The Art Institute of Chicago June 6–Aug. 30, 1998; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Oct. 2, 1998–Jan. 3, 1999.
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada, Turner, Whistler, Monet, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; 12 June 2004 – 5 Sept. 2004; Grand Palais, Paris from 16 Oct. 2004 – 16 Jan; and Tate Britain, London 12 Feb. 2005 – 15 May 2005.
London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, An American in London: Whistler and the Thames, Oct. 16, 2013–Jan. 12, 2014; Andover, Addison Gallery of American Art, Feb. –Apr. 13, 2014; Washingon DC, Freer Gallery of Art, May 2–Aug. 17, 2014; Japan, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Sept. 13–Nov. 16, 2014; Japan, Yokohama Museum of Art, Dec. 6, 2014–Mar. 1, 2015; U.S. venues only.

The artist, from 1863 to about 1889; sold to Mrs. Aglaia Coronio (born Ionides, 1834–1906), London, from about 1889 to 1892 [according to letter from James McNeill Whistler to Aglaia Coronio, undated (December 1888?), GUW 07900, note 3; letter from James McNeill Whistler to Aglaia Coronio, undated (1889?), GUW 00693, note 3; letter from Aglaia Coronio to James McNeill Whistler, undated (1889?), GUW 11034, note 4; letter from James McNeill Whistler to Aglaia Coronio, dated June 2 (1889), GUW 00691, note 3]; consigned to Boussod, Valadon & Co., Paris, by May 30, 1892; sold to Mrs. Potter Palmer (Bertha Palmer, born Honoré, 1849–1918), Chicago, May 30, 1892, for £450 [Goupil & Cie / Boussod, Valadon & Co. Stock Books, Livre no. 13, 1891–1895, p. 97, no. 22337, as Old Battersea Chelsea, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, copy in curatorial object file; letter from Boussod, Valadon and Co. to James McNeill Whistler, dated May 28, 1892, GUW 05742]; by descent to her sons, Honoré Palmer (1874–1964) and Potter Palmer II (1875–1943), 1918; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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