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[[newspaper clipping -- undated]]

A WHISTLER FOR THE NATION
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TO THE EDITOR OF "THE DAILY TELEGRAPH"

Sir-  The National Art-Collections Fund has recently acquired a "Nocturne in Blue and Silver," by Whistler. representing a night effect on the Thames, with a pier and part of a span of old Battersea Bridge in the foreground.

It is one of the most beautiful and important pictures of its class, and has been offered to the trustees of the National Gallery as a gift to the nation, owing to this artist being unrepresented in any of our national collections.

We are, yours faithfully,
I. SPIELMANN}
R. C. WITT  }  Hon. Secretaries

National Art-Collections Fund, 47, Victoria-street,
Westminster, S.W., July 17.
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Among Whistler's more important paintings are two "nocturnes in blue and silver," showing the Battersea reach.  One of them, first exhibited at the Grosvenor nearly thirty years ago, became the property of Mrs. F.R. Leyland, and the other was added to the collection of Mr. C. L. Freer.  Although by the splendid gift now recorded a national reproach is removed, one public gallery has possessed a magnificent example of the great painter since 1891.  It was in that year the Glasgow Corporation bought the "Carlyle," and it was lent by them to the organisers of the recent Whistler memorial exhibition in Regent-street.  There is also, of course, the famous "Mother's Portrait" at the Luxembourg, by the purchase of which the French Government showed their appreciation of the master.  But most of the Whistlers are in private hands, and many have crossed the Atlantic.