A charming moonscape of small proportions, signed 'W. Greaves' to the lower left. Circa. late 19th century.
Walter Greaves (1841-1930) was the son of a Chelsea boatbuilder who had rowed Turner on the Thames. The American painter James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903) met him Greaves in 1863 and they became close friends, Greaves rowing Whistler out on painting trips at night and also assisting in the studio. Before going out on the river, they prepared his canvases and set out the colours. Out in the boat, they would observe the ephemeral effects of the lights, the subtle textures and muted tones, and absorb them totally, and then, the moment Whistler got back to his studio and before going to bed, he would paint his famous ‘Nocturnes’ quickly in one sitting, aided and abetted by Greaves, and left them outside on his hedge to dry.
He worked from memory in the studio, rather than outdoors directly from nature. These paintings were intended to evoke mood, like a piano piece by Chopin. By the late 1870s, Whistler had dropped Greaves, perhaps because of the increasingly not-so-humble boatman’s presumption (at one point he claimed that he had invented the Nocturne), and his hopes of mixing with Whistler’s sophisticated new friends. Greaves painted many pictures of his own in the manner of his hero, had exhibitions of them, and is represented in the Tate Gallery, but he has been systematically written out of Whistler’s story, first by Whistler’s biographers the Pennells, and since then by every other scholar. It could not have been otherwise, for the waters are muddied by claims that the two painters worked so closely together that their paintings are indistinguishable, especially since Whistler’s work was so uneven.
Although it is certain the idea of the painted Nocturne was entirely Whistler’s (as were ‘Arrangements’ and ‘Harmonies’), the extent of Greaves’s involvement in the process in those early days remains unclear. A review of 1922 concluded that Greaves was ‘limited, provincial, naive: but his sincerity has a kind of greatness in it and makes even his inferior work interesting … when he is good he is very, very good; and when he is bad, he is still Greaves.’
This work is housed in a period oak frame. Both the work and frame remain in a good clean condition.
Dimensions (framed)
Height: 36cm
Width: 30cm
Depth: 1.25cm
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