Symphony in Violet and Blue

This painting is the only work in Alfred Pope’s collection purchased directly from the artist. Whistler wrote a note of thanks for payment to Mr. Pope from his home at 110 Rue de Bac, Paris on September 12, 1894: “Dear Mr. Pope – I beg to acknowledge the receipt [sic] of your cheque: four hundred guineas – £420 –, for my picture painted last year at the Isle de Breha, Brittany, and called in the catalogue of this years [sic] salon at the Champ de Mars, ‘Blue et Violet – en danger’ with many thanks very sincerely yours J. McNeill Whistler”. Whistler once remarked, “As music is the poetry of sound, so painting is the poetry of sight and subject matter has nothing to do with it. Art should be independent of claptrap – should stand alone and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear….” Symphony in Violet and Blue, painted on the Brittany coast when the artist was almost 60, reflects this philosophy with its broad strokes of blues, blue-greens and whites of both the sky and sea creating a whole. Whistler inscribed this abstract and ethereal seascape in the lower left with his characteristic butterfly signature. The Popes met Mr. and Mrs. Whistler while on a trip to England and Europe in 1894 and purchased Symphony in Violet and Blue directly from the artist at that time. Hill-Stead’s archives include correspondence between Whistler and Pope that reveals the depth of their friendship and mutual regard. The frame for this painting is the same design Whistler applied to another of his paintings in the collection, The Blue Wave, Biarritz. Hill-Stead’s collection includes over 20 works by Whistler, both paintings and prints.