james whistler

Museum Deaccessions Paintings Done By Whistler Protege

There seems to be a lot of deaccessioning going on at museums around the country. The Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia is the latest, announcing that it has decided to sell 13 paintings by the British painter Walter Greaves, a friend of James McNeill Whistler's. The museum will sell 12 of the artworks through Christie's New York starting with the Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings & Watercolors sale on January 26 and others will be sold at the Interiors sale in February. The 13th painting, a portrait of Whistler, may be placed with local museum.

As per the usual terms of deaccessioning, money earned in the sales will go into the Rosenbach's acquisitions fund to be used for being new art. Derick Dreher, the museum's director, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the decision to sell was made back in October. The Greaves works were acquired in 1911 by Philip H. Rosenbach, an art dealer who founded the museum with his brother, A.S.W. Rosenbach. According to Dreher, Rosenbach spent the next 30 years trying to sell the paintings but he had bought them at a high point and was never able to get a return on his investment.

Walter Greaves met Whistler around 1863 and Whistler took on Greaves and his older brother as studio assistants. The Greaves brothers taught Whistler how to row, he encouraged them to draw and paint. Greaves made many portraits of Whistler including the image shown at right, showing a dandified Whistler on the widow's walk at his house in Lindsey Row, Chelsea. Greaves achieved some level of notoriety and had several exhibitions but fell into disfavor and died in poverty. The painting shown at right is estimated at $30,000 to $50,000.

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Whistler Print Sets New Auction Record

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Swann Galleries' auction of Whistler and His Influence on Wednesday, October 27 offered approximately 150 prints by James A. M. Whistler and nearly 20 of these set world auction records, including the sale's top lot, a very early impression of Nocturne, etching and drypoint on Japan paper, 1879-80, which became the most expensive Whistler print ever sold at auction when it brought $282,000.

The moody etching, shown above, was likely one of the first that Whistler made after arriving in Venice. It was estimated to sell for $80,000 to $120,000 and bears his rare butterfly signature. Todd Weyman, Swann Vice President and Director of the Prints & Drawings Department, said, "Setting the record price for any Whistler print shows the quality and scarcity of the material we have been able to gather in the past few seasons."

Among the many other Whistlers that set records in the October 27 sale were a very scarce first state of Rotherhithe, 1860, etching and drypoint, $14,400; Little Smithfield, etching on Japan paper, which had not appeared at auction in the last 20 years, $18,000; Battersea: Dawn, drypoint, 1875, with soft, hazy tones and inky plate edges, $13,200; Fishing-Boats, Hastings, etching and drypoint on Japan paper, 1877, $15,600; Fulham, etching, 1879, one of three etchings Whistler made of the old Putney (or Fulham) toll bridge in 1879 before its destruction, $14,400; Exeter Street, etching, circa 1886-88, $22,800; and Rue des Bon Enfants, Tours, etching and drypoint, 1888, created while he was honeymooning in the Loire Valley, $21,600. The two day sale brought in a total of $2,527,512 with Buyer's Premium.

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