Grosvenor Gallery

The Grosvenor Gallery opened on Bond Street, London in 1877. In At the Temple of Art, Denney describes the late nineteenth century visitors to the Grosvenor Gallery. She imagines that after ‘they finished their morning correspondence or gave final orders to dressmakers or tailors on New Bond Street, they could enter the cool interior and quiet solitude of this temple of contemplation and suspend ordinary time’. It is clear that some of the tailors on New Bond Street also followed their customers into the cool interior of the Grosvenor Gallery. In the first summer exhibition,‘On the side walls in between, in individual sections, were Whistler’s seven ‘”Nocturnes,” “Arrangements,” and “Harmonies” and Moore’s three figure panels. In addition, Strudwick’s Love Music, owned by the well-known collector, Captain Henry Hill, and Spencer Stanhope’s four contributions hung in this same room.’ Hill in fact also owned one of Whistlers Nocturnes. Whether he bought this from the Grosvenor Gallery at this exhibition or later, possibly directly from the artist, is unclear.

Denney, Colleen (2000). At the Temple of Art: the Grosvenor Gallery, 1877–1890. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press pp. 9 and 70