id: 140428 accession number: 1964.361 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.361 updated: 2024-03-26 01:59:07.657000 Gray and Silver: A Nocturne, c. 1880–1900. Walter Greaves (British, 1841–1930). Oil on canvas; framed: 74.9 x 85.1 x 6 cm (29 1/2 x 33 1/2 x 2 3/8 in.); unframed: 51 x 58.7 cm (20 1/16 x 23 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1964.361 title: Gray and Silver: A Nocturne title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1880–1900 creation date earliest: 1880 creation date latest: 1900 current location: creditline: Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund copyright: --- culture: England, 19th century technique: oil on canvas department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Walter Greaves (British, 1841–1930) - artist Walter Greaves, who began life as the son of a Chelsea boat builder and was initially trained as a shipwright and boatman, was a painter, etcher, and topographical draftsman. As an artist he was essentially self-taught until the early 1860s, when he and his brother Henry (1844-1904) met James Abbott McNeil Whistler (1834-1903). They became Whistler's pupils, studio assistants, advisers on Thames topography, and friends for nearly two decades. Walter's earliest oil paintings are charming in their naiveté, and he produced a significant number of etchings and drawings of views in Chelsea. Under Whistler's direct tutelage, Greaves painted his most inspired pictures, "Nocturnes" or "Moonlights," in imitation of his master's most successful landscape inventions. Their relationship cooled in the 1890s, and Greaves lapsed into obscurity until rediscovered by William Marchant, owner of the prestigious Goupil Galleries. Marchant organized a major Greaves retrospective in 1911, but rather than advance the impoverished artist's reputation, it precipitated a vitriolic exchange in the press between Marchant and Whistler's biographer and champion, Joseph Pennell, who accused Greaves of deception and plagiarism. In true Whistlerian fashion, Marchant countered with an eighty-page pamphlet, A Reply to an Attack Made by One of Whistler's Biographers on a Pupil of Whistler Mr. Walter Greaves (London, 1911), but neither this elaborate defense nor the public support Greaves received from Whistler's most successful student, Walter Sickert (1860-1942), could sustain the Greaves revival. The artist died destitute as a Poor Brother of London's Charterhouse. --- measurements: Framed: 74.9 x 85.1 x 6 cm (29 1/2 x 33 1/2 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 51 x 58.7 cm (20 1/16 x 23 1/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Paths of Abstraction - 1867-1917 opening date: 2010-06-26T00:00:00 Paths of Abstraction - 1867-1917. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (organizer) (June 26-September 19, 2010). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'London, Institute of Contemporary Art. Ten Decades; A Review of British Taste 1851-1951 (1951), no. 104, Whistler, Nocturne in Grey and Silver, lent anonymously.', 'opening_date': '1951-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'New York, Durlacher Bros. Painters of the Beautiful; Lord Leighton, Whistler, Albert Moore and Conder (1964), no. 24, Whistler, Nocturne in Grey and Silver, signed lower right with Butterfly in circle; Hugh Blaker collection.', 'opening_date': '1964-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Art Gallery of New South Wales (6/26/2010 - 9/19/2010): "Path of Abstraction - 1867-1917", no cat. #, p. 90.', 'opening_date': '2010-06-26T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE Sold by Messrs. Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell, at the death of C. W. Dowdeswell at London sale, Christie's, 7-9 February 1917 (lot 308), W. Greaves, Grey and Silver: A Nocturne, 19½ x 13½ in., for £11:11:-: to Hugh Blaker. Bought in 1945 by Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London. Sold to Beryl Joyce. Sold by her at London sale, Christie's, 5 July 1963 (lot 15), Whistler, Nocturne in Silver and Grey, signed with butterfly, 19 x 23 in., bought in and returned to Beryl Joyce. Bought back by Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London. Sold to Durlacher Bros. New York. Purchased by the CMA in 1964. date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 323, Vol. I, no. 113 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.361/1964.361_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.361/1964.361_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.361/1964.361_full.tif