Nocturne in blue and gold, Valparaiso

Whistler's celebrated 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold' was painted after he visited Valparaiso in 1866. It was sold by Chritie's in 1889 and passed through several important collections including that of Alexander Ionides. By 1893 in was in the collection of the mining millionaire George McCulloch, when he died in 1907 it passed to his widow and hung in her house at 64 Queen's Gate, London. In 1909 she married James Coutts Michie and in that year he painted the present picture before the original was sold to the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.