A Little Red Note–Dordrecht

1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 186
Whistler's travels to Holland during the summer of 1883 and in January and February of 1884 included visits to Dordrecht, and he may have painted this watercolor then. His sketchbook from the trip contains a similar watercolor note [Sketchbook E, p. 41, Hunterian, Birnie Philip Bequest]. Whistler was elected to the Society of British Artists in November 1884. Among the works he exhibited at the society's Winter Exhibition held in their Suffolk Street galleries was A Little Red Note: Dordrecht. The luminous little watercolor was praised in the newspapers as "masterful," "delightful," and "charming." Earlier that year, Whistler had printed "Proposition No. 2," which begins, "A Picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared." One journalist, who must have taken "Proposition No. 2" to heart, found A Little Red Note "perfectly magical in the amount and nature of the effects, contrasted with the means employed."

2. Newspaper cuttings pasted on verso
Daily News: "Among the water-colors we observe nothing so excellent as Mr. Whistler's 'Little Red Note,' which is perfectly magical in the amount and nature of the effects, contrasted with the means employed (644)."

Unknown source: "The painter's second contribution, 'A Little Red Note–Dordrecht,' is a masterly example of rapid outdoor work. Among his watercolor sketches we have seen none so luminous in tone or so strongly suggestive of natural effect."

Unknown source: "Mr. Whistler marks his entry among his new-found brethren by two characteristic works–a delightful little watercolor, 'A Little Red Note' (44), a reminiscence (a la Whistler) of that most picturesque of Dutch towns, Dordrecht."

From "The Academy," December 6, 1884, article entitled: "Society of British Artists," following a general statement about the exhibition, it says: "We will mention only one or two of its most salient features, and of these the thing to name most prominently is that Mr. Whistler has joined its ranks. The invitation to him to do so argues the possession, on the part of the British artists, of a greater range of appreciation of other art than one could have thought likely from a survey of their own somewhat conservative methods...Mr. Whistler has sent two contributions. Shall we be reckoned guilty of a pestilent heresy, or considered to have uttered only such an opinion as is likely to be cherished by the natural man, if we say that we prefer his "Little Red Note: Dordrecht" to his "Arrangement in Black: Portrait of Mrs. Louis Huth"?...(about Mrs. Hutch's portrait)... Nevertheless, give us the "Little Red Note" instead of it. That is quite a charming thing."