Night Sketch of the Thames near Hungerford Bridge by George Price Boyce (1826-1897). (?) c.1866. Watercolour on paper. Support: 222 × 337 mm. Collection: Tate, ref. no. N05000. Bequeathed by Miss May Morris, 1939. Image kindly released under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This nocturnal mood piece, a study in inky blue, is reminiscent of Whistler, who had made an etching of the same bridge in 1861, which was shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1863. In fact, the two were friends. Christopher Newall explains that
As early as 1860 he [Boyce] described meeting at the National Gallery "a gallicized Yankee, Whistler by name, who was very amusing, and with whom I walked part of the way home" (Diaries, p.29.) A friendship and exchange of ideas ensued between the two artists. Since his visit to Venice in 1854 Boyce had been interested in the effects of twilight on the city landscape; in London he occasionally painted the moonlit Thames from the rooms in Buckingham Street which he occupied until 1862. "Night Sketch of the Thames near Hungerford Bridge" (No.31) is an example of Boyce’s evocation of the nocturnal cityscape of the early 1860s. Whistler and Boyce perhaps discussed the possibilities of this type of subject; Whistler had long been interested in the topography of the river by day, and on one occasion in 1863, after Boyce’s move to Chatham Place, he "began an etching from one of my windows looking up the river." (Diaries, p.37). Boyce’s semi-abstract and poignantly beautiful studies of the city by night certainly anticipate by several years Whistler’s own nocturnes, the first of which was painted after his visit to Valparaiso in 1866, and were perhaps an inspiration to the American artist. [26-27]
The old suspension bridge is dimly glimpsed here, and the composition is atmospheric: a few boats ply beneath the starry sky. But the silhouettes and reflections of the various structures are somewhat blocky (note that Newall describes Boyce's studies of the city at night as "semi-abstract" as well as "poignantly beautiful"), and the whole composition makes less of an impact than, for example, Nocturne: Blue and Silver — Chelsea. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Links to Related Material
Bibliography
Newall, Christopher. George Price Boyce. London: Tate, 1987.
Night Sketch of the Thames near Hungerford Bridge. Tate. Web. 12 August 2024.
Created 12 August 2024