THE FREER COLLECTION OF ART 
359 
Porcelaine” (to create a proper environ¬ 
ment for which, it is said, the room was 
decorated) is given its original place of 
honor, and on the delicate shelves which 
line the walls, and were designed for 
the exhibition of Mr. Leyland’s porce¬ 
lains, are now to be seen choice specimens 
of Eastern pottery. It was called a 
“Harmony in Blue and Gold,” and no 
other words, probably, could so well de¬ 
scribe it. There is nothing blatant, 
nothing bizarre, in its decoration, but, in¬ 
stead, great reticence and impressive dig¬ 
nity. The clever Whistler, who with a 
few careless or apparently careless strokes 
could toss off a picture, is forgotten in 
the master who, sure of his art and his 
medium, begrudged neither labor nor time 
to the perfecting of his work. The 
trifler stands abashed, the scoffer is si¬ 
lenced. In nothing is the genius of the 
painter more plainly manifested. 
Until a few months ago, when he built 
a small gallery over his stable, Mr. Freer 
had no appropriate place in which to ex¬ 
hibit his collection, and as the space even 
now is extremely limited, he still keeps 
the majority of his Whistler paintings 
in fire-proof vaults, and commonly shows 
them only a few at a time. Probably for 
this reason more than for any other, the 
collection as a whole is comparatively 
little known. It has not been possible 
for Mr. Freer to respond to all requests 
for loans, but he is far from ungenerous, 
and many of the recent prominent exhi¬ 
bitions have been materially enriched 
from his collection. The Boston and 
Paris Whistler memorial exhibitions drew 
heavily upon it, and to it the “Compara¬ 
tive Exhibition,” the Pennsylvania Acad¬ 
emy’s “One Hundred and First Annual 
Exhibition,” and other leading picture- 
shows have acknowledged indebtedness. 
In this way many persons have be¬ 
come familiar with some of his most 
noted canvases, such as the two nocturnes, 
“Battersea Reach” and “Bognor”; “The 
Little Blue and Gold Girl”; “Little 
Lady Sophie of Soho,” “The Little Red 
Glove,” and “Early Morning—Thames” ; 
but besides these there is a host more of 
equal interest and merit. The full- 
length portrait of Mr. Leyland, for ex¬ 
ample, procured recently and rarely if 
ever exhibited; an early portrait of the 
artist himself, painted while under the 
influence of the Dutch masters; and a 
later one, produced when he had found 
and fully developed his own personality; 
to say nothing of the Venus group, the 
“Golden Screen” (from Lord Batter¬ 
sea’s collection), which introduces most 
frankly a Japanese motif, and yet demon¬ 
strates individuality of vision; the “Sym¬ 
phony in Blue and Pink,” wherein are 
combined the Greek and Oriental types 
of beauty; “The Balcony,” another of 
the same notable series; “Le Raconteur,” 
a most bewitching and inscrutable child 
portrait; the “Thames in Ice,” owned 
once by Sir Seymour Lladen; “Arrange¬ 
ment in Black and White, No. 1,” a 
masterly full-length; and many others. 
One of the most interesting sections 
of Mr. Freer’s Whistler collection is that 
made up of small-sized pictures—oils, 
water colors, and pastels,—“no larger,” 
some one has said, “than a man’s hand, 
but with all the world in them,”—perfect 
in detail, exquisite in color, and keenly 
artistic. Among these are the Chelsea 
pictures, some views of Venice, glimpses 
of the Thames, London street scenes, to¬ 
gether with corners of the artist’s own 
studio and—far removed—sweeping bits 
of the French coast, with broad stretches 
of the summer sea. 
The water colors alone constitute an 
important portion of this collection—im¬ 
portant not only in themselves, but in 
their bearing upon Whistler’s art. It 
has been said that he did not draw; but 
these are remarkable for their draughts¬ 
manship as well as for their acute tech¬ 
nique. Here is his study for the “Tall 
Flower,” his portrait of Mrs. Whibley, 
“Gray and Silver—the Mersey,” “Venice 
Harbor,” and “Chelsea Children.” 
So, too, the pastels should be con¬ 
sidered separately, and will be found to 
set forth another phase of the painter’s 
versatility—to demonstrate with special 
clearness his understanding of the art 
of elimination and his love of pure, un¬ 
related color. As his low-toned can¬ 
vases sometimes seem to have been dipped, 
like a piece of pottery, in translucent 
glaze, so these pastels are found remin¬ 
iscent of the exhumed wares which have 
been rewarded for their long sleep by 
iridescent splendor. Take, for example, 
those exquisite figure studies, “The 
Shell” and “The Pearl,” or the picture 
