St. Ives: Cornwall F1905.117a-b: Curatorial Analysis | Whistler in Watercolor

Maker nationality and date: 1834-1903

Date(s): 1883-1884

Medium: Watercolor on paper

Dimension(s): H x W: 17.6 × 12.7 cm (6 15/16 × 5 in)

Credit Line: Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Object Number: F1905.117a-b

Alternate title: Penzance, Cornwall

Production location: England, Cornwall, St. Ives

Theme: Seascape

Signature(s): Pink butterfly below center at right edge

Inscription(s): Verso: Thos. Way (unknown hand)

Provenance: To 1905
Thomas Way Sr. (1827-1915), London, or Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London, to 1905 [1]

From 1905 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Thomas Way Sr. or Thomas Robert Way in 1905 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] See Original Whistler List, Paintings, pg. 20A, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Thomas Way Sr. and his son, Thomas Robert Way, were lithographers who worked closely with Whistler on several of his projects. They helped with the printing of his etchings, as well as the printing of Whistler’s promotional materials. Both Thomas Way Sr. and Thomas Robert Way owned many Whistler works. Thomas Way Sr. acquired several of these works at the time of Whistler’s bankruptcy, and he passed some of them on to his son (see The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855-1903, ed. Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp, On-line Edition, People, biographies of Thomas Way and Thomas Robert Way; http://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence).

Charles Lang Freer acquired many Whistler pieces from the Ways. However, museum records do not always specify whether it was the younger or elder Way who was the source of a particular object. Further, archival sources indicate that the junior Way sometimes acted on behalf of his father: whilst negotiating the sale of his own Whistler works to C.L. Freer, he would concurrently negotiate the sale of some of his father’s Whistler works to Freer. In cases where it is unclear whether it was the junior or senior Way who actually owned a piece acquired by C.L. Freer, the provenance record will simply state that the object was purchased from “Thomas Way Sr. or Thomas Robert Way.”

[2] See note 1.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Exhibition History: International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, February 22 to April 15, 1905
Freer Gallery of Art, American Paintings, Pastels, and Water Colors, and Drawings. J.A.McN. Whistler, May 2, 1923 to January 7, 1924

Selected Curatorial Remarks: 1. Glazer, Jacobson, McCarthy, Roeder, wall label, 2019:
Whistler traveled to St. Ives in southwest England in late 1883, intent on producing works to sell at a solo gallery show in London. He had recently purchased supplies to paint en plein air, including a travel stool and a pochade box, a small case for carrying art materials. The artist reported he was "tremendously busy with lots of pictures of all kinds." He moved easily between painting with watercolors or oils, as seen in The Sea and Sand. Even so, his touch is lighter and his palette appears brighter in the resulting watercolors. These three watercolors from St. Ives are linked by their paper. Each contains traces of kaolin, a fine clay found in the hills of Cornwall and used in porcelain production.
2. Lee Glazer, 2018:
St. Ives works were painted on a trip spanning the winter of 1883--1884. This work was previously owned by T.R. Way; it was reproduced as the frontispiece to T.R. Way and G.R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation (London: 1903) under the title St. Ives. In 1905 it was exhibited at the 1905 memorial exhibition in London as St. Ives, Cornwall. Freer thought the watercolor represented Penzance, according to an annotation he made to Way's 1905 list. Kenneth Myers, following Anna Robins, believed it was a depiction of the Penzance promenade with the pink Queen's Hotel in the background, based upon other paintings of the area (see Norman Garstin's The Rain It Raineth Every Day, 1889, Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance). However, there is no evidence that Whistler visited Penzance during his St. Ives, Cornwall sojourn with Mortimer Menpes and Walter Sickert in late 1883-early 1884.
3. Kenneth Myers, 2004:
This watercolor was owned by T.R. Way in 1903, when it was reproduced as the frontispiece to T.R. Way and G.R. Dennis, The Art of James McNeill Whistler: An Appreciation (London: 1903), where it carries the title, "St. Ives." T.R. Way lent it to the Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late James McNeill Whistler (London, 1905), where it was listed in the catalogues as "St. Ives, Cornwall." Freer purchased the watercolor from Way in July 1905. In his annotations to the list of objects he purchased from Way, Freer noted that he thought it was a view of Penzance. Nonetheless, in 1912, it was reproduced as "St. Ives, Cornwall" in Elizabeth R. Pennell and Joseph Pennell, "Whistler as Decorator," Century Magazine 83 (February 1912). But the Pennell's must have had their doubts, because in Elizabeth R. Pennell and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal (Philadelphia: 1921), 51, it is reproduced as "Lyme Regis," and erroneously described as belonging to Mrs. Knowles.
Like St. Ives, Penzance is a small port in West Cornwall. Lyme Regis is a small port in Dorset, on the south coast of England, east of both Penzance and St. Ives. In the mid 1880s, when Whistler made the watercolor, all three ports were still fishing villages, although each was attracting increasing numbers of tourists. Gilbert & Sullivan's famous opera The Pirates of Penzance premiered on December 31, 1879.
In an email dated July 17, 2003 to Kenneth Myers, Curator of America Art at the Freer Gallery of Art, the British art historian Ann Gruetzner Robins reported that "in April I checked to see if "St. Ives, Cornwall" (M915, F1905.117) was in fact St. Ives harbour, and it is definitely not." Subsequently, Robins visited Penzance, and is convinced that Freer was correct, and that the watercolor is of Penzance. Robin's main piece of evidence was a reproduction of an 1889 painting by Norman Garstin (1874-1926), The Rain it Raineth Everyday (Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance) which shows the Penzance premenade with the large mass of the pink/red Queen's Hotel with its distinctive tower looming behind Holly House, a squat, three story white building. The configuration of the buildings in F1905.117, and their relationship to the harbor to their right, closely matches the configurations in the Garstin painting, so I think Robins's suggested identification is probably correct.
Email correspondence between Robins and Myers is now in the curatorial object file for F1905.117. This correspondence includes a postcard of the Garstin painting, supplied by Robins. Anna Grutzner Robins, Reader in the History of Art, University of Reading, Blandford Lodge, Whiteknights, PO Box 217 Reading RG6 6AH, United Kingdom.

Selected Published References: 1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 187
A guidebook of the period described St. Ives as "a quaint old town" occupied with "the coasting trade and pilchard fishery." Whistler displays little interest in detailing the tourist attractions of the place, however. Instead he depicts the beach, populated with occasional strollers. The long curve of the shoreline is emphasized by a large blank foreground, while its strong geometric shape is anchored by tightly massed buildings. Although greatly simplified, the composition recalls a view of the Riva in Venice, executed only a few years earlier [The Riva, etching, F1898.338].

Catalogue Raisonne number: M915
MacDonald Catalogue number

Previous owner(s): Thomas Way Sr. (1837-1915)
Thomas Robert Way (C.L. Freer source) (1861-1913)
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

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St. Ives: Cornwall

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