Professional Notes

Picture Framing: J.M. Whistler’s Picture Frames in the Freer Gallery, Washington, in the light of the 1994-95 Whistler Exhibitions

All lovers ot the paintings of Whistler h ~VC‘ had much to cclcbrdtc in rcccnt vcdrs, not lcdst the reopening of the F reer Galler\. of Art after its refurbish- mcnt and the major travelling exhibition, I amcs Mch:c~ill Whistlel; which \vas ‘jointI\, organiscd bv the Tate Gallcr!~, London; the Kunion des Musics Natio- ndux and the Plus& J’Orsay, Paris; and the Kational Gallcr\. of Art, W,xsh- ington, 1994-95. The Freer Gallcr\ of Art boast\ the most compTc‘hcIIs;\.c’ii~~~~~~i~iisi~.~’~~~I- Iection ot wcjrks bv Vi’histlel; collcctcd b!, Charlc:, 1:rccr (~ I SS4-1919) from I SS7, but under the terms of his donation to the Sniithsonian Institution it iii,11 not

Icnd them. ‘l’h~ I~rYrlCS McN~~ v%ljth cshibition, wliei~ sho\vn dt the National Galler!~ of Art, was con~plen~entcd 1~~ the exhibition l'i~hrstlcr tl- Jap,m mounted I)! the I-t-ccl- Galler! (until the end of 199.5). ,lnd the combindtiOn of these exhibitions encourages a renc\\.cd cxdmindtion of Whistler’s picture fi-diiics

with particular regard to those in the Freer Collection.

It-a M. IIoi-o\vitr (‘Whistler’s FI-anics’, A~tjoMY?z‘ll39(2), 121-13 I, 197%80), IMS

set out in sonic detail the dcvclopmcnt of Whistler’s designs for picture fi-diilc\, dnd

E\.,l Mencigc~~ (‘Janlc’s McNeil1 Whistlct;

this account and offers fresh insights. In particular she quotes T.R. Way and G.R. Dennis (The Art o-f James McNeil1 Whis- tlcr; London, 1905, p.103):

Mr. Whistler’s fine decorative instinct WAS also brought upon the framing of his pictures. He was never content with the stock patterns of the frame-maker, hut designed his own mouldings, and, in the cast ot his earlier works, cvcn went so far as t(> paint a kind of Japmese pattern on the surfacc of the gold, using one of the dominant col- ours of the picture it enclosed. All his frame5 arc extremely simple in style, md it is interesting to trace through the ye.>rs the changes which he developed, not only in mouldings. which wcrc mostly arrangcmcnts of fine reeds, but in the colour of the gold he used.

Toda! WC might add a rider concerning the activities of later framers, gilders and restorers.

The outlines then arc clear, and in the first group, dating I from 1864, Whistler explored the possibilities of brightly gilded frames with broad flats and a wide raised outer edge, all ornamented with moulded Oriental motifs. One of the earliest of these, if not the first, is the frame enclosing Purple arzd Rose: The Lmgc Lcizen of the Six Mafks (signed and dated 1861) which was shown at the Roval Academy in 1864 and acquired by the dealer Ernest Gambart. However, this painting was included in Whistler’s maior exhibition held at Goupil’s, Lon- Jon, in 1892, when the painter insisted upon comprehensive reframing of his works to ensure aesthetic continuity, before its purchase bv John G. Johnson of I’hiladclphia (1893). One wonders how at the time it escaped that reframing into the patterns of reeded moulding

ddm/Vicnn,l, 1995, pp.~7-94) dram-s OII frame designed by Whistler which he

then prefer& in order to achieve the uniform effect hc desired. Bequeathed b> Johnson to the City. of Philadelphia in 1917, enclosed in the 1864 frame, the painting and frame would appear to have been reunited after the 1892 exhibition closed, unlike the Tate Gallery’s painting Symphony in N’hitc, No.2: Little White Girl which belongs to this 1864 group of paintings and would appear to retain, albeit modified, the 1892 rceded mould- ing frame which replaced its particularlv beautiful earlier frame. Certainly the six Chinese character-s carved wiihin the decorative roundcls around Purple and Rose are almost certainI!, derived from the marks on a piece of K’ang Hsi porcelain and thus allude directly to the subject matter of the painting.

Close in stvlc to the Johnson Collec- tion frame is that enclosing Caprice i~2

Puvple and Gold: The Golden .Scrtw2

,I1 l’otc., 207

(signed and dated 1864) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1865 and later purchased by Charles Freer, but whcrcas the Johnson Collection frame is plain gilt, that in the Freer Collection demonstrates the important innovation of Whistler picking out the Japanese ‘family crests’ in the eight roundels with a dark red paint, over the gilding, echo- ing one of the dominant colours of the painting. The gilding on these two frames, together with that of the similar frame of La Princess du Pays de la Porcelain (1863-64) which was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1865 and was, without reframing, subsequently the focal point around which Whistler cre- ated Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room for Frederick Leyland (1876), share the same characteristics of colour and degree of burnishing of the abstract Chinese/Japanese low-relief

2. CLtprice m Purple and Gold. The Golden Screen, hy J.M. Whistler, signed and dated 1864, oil on pdtd, 5C.2 x 68.7 cm., Freer Gallcry of Art, Washington. The eight round& with Jap- anese ‘family crests’ are picked out with a dark red paint which echoes a dominant colour of the painting.

ornament, which set them aside from those of the second group.

Whistler’s picture frames of the second group combine t-ceded mouldings with painted ‘Japanese ornament applied over the gilding to one or more flats, and these were produced by the Greaves workshop in London which also supplied frames to Holman Hunt and D.G. Rossetti. The evolution from the first group to the second can bc charted by wav of Whis- tler’s painting Girl xzth Chc&y Blossom (Private Collection, United Kingdom, illustrated by Mendgen, op. cit., p.89) which is the left-hand section of the large painting entitled 7%ree Girls. Commis- sioncd bv Frederick Levland, Whistler worked on Thrrc~ Girls from 1868 into the earl\, 187Os, and when it failed to satisfy him he cut it up. The frame enclosing Girl with Cherubs Blossom has every appearance of having cut down down to its present size and there is a good chance that it was made from the fr-ame originall\~ produced for Three Girls in I868 or shortlv afterwards. The ornament composed of~five rows of small spirals, closely- packed, follows the 1864 group of frames, while the wide raised outer edge of that group has been replaced by the reeded moulding Whis- tler preferred subsequently.

Parallel in many respects to this frame is that enclosing Variations in Pink and Grcy: Chelsea (1871-72, Freer Gallerqof Art, Washington) which was first exhtb- ited at the Dudley Gallery in London in 1873, presumably before its sale that year to the dealer, Louis Huth. This painting was included in the 1892 Goupil exhibi- tion, though without the permanent loss of its original frame on which Whistler’s butterfly ‘signature’ appears for the first time. In this frame the rows of closely packed spirals are replaced by a cheq- uered design of short, deeply-incised lines, while the raised outer edge is

widened, with smaller chequered orna- ment between the reeded mouldings.

The study of Whistler’s picture frames is greatly complicated by the painter’s habit of reframing his paintings-not only for the Goupil exhibition of 1892, and sometimes with frames appreciably earlier in date than the paintings which they were to enclose-while decades of heavy-handed alterations/restorations add additional uncertainty. Nocturne: Bltle and Silver-Chelsea (signed and dated 1871) was purchased bv W.C. Alexander in 1871, the year ’ it was exhibited at the Dudley Gallery, and bequeathed by his daughters to the National Gallery, London, in 1972 (trans-

fcrrcd immcdiatcl!~ to the Tatc Gallci-v). Both paintin, cr and ornamented frame di-c ‘signed’ with the butterfl!,, but it is not entirely clear when thcv were brought together and the present coarse slips inserted. On the other hand, Whistler’s seminal Noctnmc in HItic and Gold: Old Rattcrsca Bridge (Tate Gallery, London) had an cxtendcd genesis (?1872-77) and its present frame, vcrv similar to that of the Alcxandcr painting, is presumed to have been made for it before its first exhibition, in Brighton (1875). The main flat is ornamented with painted over- lapping wave-forms (5eigaih.a or ‘blue scd waves’ in Japanese), applied over the gilding, with the painted butterfly roundel on the right hand side extending into the adjacent narrow flats, illusionistically, as if cstcnding behind the reeded mouldmgs.

Simplified seigaiha decoration con- bined with a single row of painted

chcqucrs and reeded mouldings arc cmploycd for the frame of Sympho~zy in K’/lite, No.1: The White Girl (signed and dated 1862, National Gallcry, Wash- ington), indicating that this frame dates from some ten y-ears later than the painting. However, the superb frame for Awangement in Black, No.8: Portrait of ,Ifm Cassatt (Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Donald L. Bryant, Jr) painted in London in 1883-85 but not shipped to Phil- adclphia until 1886 or 1887, emplovs Irather bolder scigaiha painted ornament over onlv limited areas of the central flat, while the painted butterfly roundel again cxtcnds illusionistically into the adjacent narrow flat.

This type of frame, combining painted sclgaha decoration with reeded mould- ings, would appear to have been reserved for works of particular significance to Whistler, and it leads on to the third

3. Kz&ztions 172 Pink and Grq,: Chelsea, by J.M. Whistler, 1871-72, oil on canv-as, 62.7 X 40.5cm., Freer Gallcrv of Art, Wash- ington. Whidcr’s huttcrflv ‘signature’ appears on this frame for the first time, and the chequercd design of short incised lines replaces the closely~packcd spirals of the 1864 group.

4. rktail of the right hand side of the trdmc ot .Sympilon~, zn Vi’hite, h'o.1: y%C \r'hUc Gzd, by J&l. Whistler, sig[lc‘d .md dated 1862, oil on c.ln\‘dS, 214.6 x l08.0cm., National Gallc~-> of Art, \v<sh- ington, 1 larris Whittcmore Collec- tic>n, lent to the cxhihition Jnmc, Mc~V~ill \Y’hzjt/u (I 994-95). The main flat i\ ornamcntcd with pain- ted >cigrlih,z decoration applied over the gIlding, combined with .I single row of painted chcquers and rccdcd moulding5.

5. &tail of the right hand side of the frame of Arrangement in Black, No.8: Portrait of Mres. Cas- mu, 1883-85, signed, oil on can- vas, 191.1 X 90.8 cm., collection of Mr. & Mrs. Donald L. Bryant, Jr, Icnt to the exhibition James .4fcNeill Whistler (1994-95). The narrow frame is ornamented with bold sezgaiha painted decoration while the painted butterfly ‘sig- nature’ roundcl extends illu>ionis- tically into the adjacent narrow flat.

group of frames, those with alternating flats and reeded mouldings which are generally associated with his name- generically as ‘Whistler frames’. For Charles Freer, Whistler painted Har- mony in Blue and Gold: The Little Blue Givl and although Freer paid for it in 1894 the painting was still in the studio at Whistler’s death in 1903. The frame enclosing Th Little Blue Girl is a particularly refined example of the third group ot frames and, given Whistler’s working practices and Freer’s payment, it is likely to date from 1893-94 rather than later. The crisp painted chcquer decoration applied over the gilding of the two flats also suggests that earlier dating, and close in style and execution is the undecorated tramc enclosing Vuriutions in Flesh Colouv and Green: The Balcony which Whistler began in 1864 and exhib-

ited at the Koyal Academy in 1870 when it passed into the possession of G.J. Cavafy. This painting was almost cer- tainly reframed for the Goupil exhibition in 1892 and Charles Freer purchased it that year. Henry Grau of 570 Fulton Road, London, was Whistler’s principal framemaker in the early 1890s and pre- sumably made the frames ordered for the Goupil exhibition.

Much more intractable is the problem of Whistler’s gilding and the 1994-95 travelling exhibition revealed with uncompromising clarity that although the moulding frames currently enclosing most of the paintings are reasonably faithful to the models created by the painter, their gilding is not. The exquisite sensibility celebrated in 1905 by Way and Dennis had all but vanished in the travelling exhibition. Original gilding in

6. Harmony in Rlue and Gold: Th Imle Blue C;irl, by J.M. Whistler, 1894-l 933, oil on can\ds, 74.7 X 50.5 cm.. I~reer Gallery of Art, Washington. Painted for Charles Freer from 1894 the elegant frame with its crisp painted chequer decoration of the flats probabl!- elates from 1893-94. The heavier reedcd moddings are typicall! of the final

type of Whistler’s frames.

7. Var2atm7s tn Flelesll Colour and Grern: The Balcony, bv J.M. Whistler, 1864-70, oh on panel, 61.4 X 48.8 cm., Freer Gallery of Art, Wash- ington. This painting was almost certainly reframed for the Goupil exhibition of 1892 by Henry Grau to Whistler’s designs.

good condition is by implication recog- nised above, but something of what has been lost is demonstrated well by the exquisite watcrcolours Nocturne in grey andgold-Piccadilly (1881-83) and Sac- rise: gold md grry (1884) purchased bv Jonathan Hogg of Dublin from the Dowdeswell exhibition of 1884 in Lon- don and bequeathed to the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, in 1930. The very pale silver-v gilding of their frames- unmcntioncd .in the exhibition cata- logue-provides a delicate foil to thcsc ethereal images and a tantalising insight

into the finely balanced total harmony Whistler sought both within each framed picture and between his works and their immediate environment.

Photo Credit: Peter Cannon-Brookes, Abingdon.

The author is greatly indebted to the Freer Gallery of Art (1993) and the Tate Gallery (1994) for the facilities provided to study these frames and to photograph them.

Security: Security Standards for Temporary Exhibitions and the Role of ICMS

its Standards for Touring Exhibitions (London, 1995; ISBN: 9-948630-34-5) has been motivated bv the whollv lauda- blc desire to make widely available an authoritative code of practice for the benefit of both the oreanisers of tempo-

‘1

Publication bv the Museums & Galleries rary exhibitions and the lenders to them.

COlllmission,‘in the United Kingdom, of Unfortunately, the priorities, and indeed frames of reference, of the two groups are