Valparaiso+Harbor

Date: 1866
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/1929/1929.6.159_1a.jpg&max=460 width="221" height="323" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=27615"]] || Title: **Valparaiso Harbor**

Artist: **James McNeill Whistler** Born: Lowell, Massachusetts 1834 Died: London, England 1903

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 30 1/8 x 20 1/8 in. (76.6 x 51.1 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of John Gellatly

Accession: 1929.6.159 || //Valparaiso Harbor// is an oil sketch that relates to other scenes of Valparaiso, Chile by J. M. Whistler. The painting is thought to be a topographical study created in preparation for //Nocturne: Blue and Gold Valparaiso// (1866; Freer Gallery of Art).
 * About the Artwork: **

This sketch and the Freer painting are among the earliest of Whistler’s works that incorporate oriental design principles into the structure of the scene. In the sketch the artist used tones that recall his Trouville series, which was influenced by Courbet’s style. The Freer painting suggests the qualities seen in Whistler’s subsequent nocturnes.

Whistler visited Chile in 1866, while the country was revolting against Spain. In the Valparaiso series, the artists explored new forms of pictorial expression. For more information about the sketch in the SAAM collections and Whistler’s trip to Chile browse //Out of Context: American Artists Abroad// edited by Laura Felleman Fattal and Carol Salus, (Westport, Connecticut: 2004).

James McNeill Whistler in Context: Essays from the Whistler Centenary Symposium, University of Glasgow, 2003 - Freer|Sackler Gallery
 * Resources: **

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
 * Links: **