Hastings: fishing boats

Details

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Hastings: fishing boats
watercolor on paper
5½ x 8¾ in. (14 x 22.2 cm.)
Executed circa 1880-81.

Provenance

[With]P. & D. Obach & Co., London.
Christie's, London, 21 July 1911, lot 80.
Private collection, acquired from the above.
[With]P. & D. Colnaghi & Company, London.
[With]C.W. Dowdeswell, London.
George E. Healing.
Sotheby's, London, 18 November 1953, lot 64.
J. Leger & Son, London.
Sotheby's, London, 14 April 1965, lot 39.
Private collection, Washington, D.C., acquired from the above.

Literature

A.E. Gallatin, Whistler's Pastels and Other Modern Profiles, New York, 1912, pl. 10, illustrated.
M.F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, Connecticut, 1995, p. 313, no. 832, illustrated.

Lot Essay

According to Dr. Margaret F. MacDonald, "The technique suggests that this, like [Hastings (circa 1880-81, private collection, United States) and Hastings from the cliffs (circa 1880-81, Private collection, England)], dates from one of Whistler's visits to his mother in Hastings after his return from Venice in November 1880. This is the first of many paintings of boats in the eighties, but it is unusual in its scale and concentration on the boats alone, rather than the sea." (M.F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, Connecticut, 1995, p. 313)

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