On Guy Fawkes’ Day, this week’s picture is James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket. Painted in 1875 and exhibited two years later at the Grosvenor Galleries, this challengingly obscure evocation of pyrotechnics over London provoked John Ruskin to fire off a rocket of his own: “I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler sued Ruskin for libel and the case was tried at the Old Law Courts in November 1878 in front of a large gallery who evidently found the whole affair richly entertaining.

The transcripts of Whistler v. Ruskin record some memorably theatrical exchanges between the artist and his cross-examiner, the Attorney-General Sir John Holker. Holker claimed that he could almost see nothing in Whistler’s painting except “a sort of a blaze at the bottom”. He relished playing the role of baffled sceptic required by his brief, while Whistler gave as good as he got:

HOLKER: Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off? (Laughter)

WHISTLER: I beg your pardon?

HOLKER: I was using an expression which is rather more applicable to my own profession. (Laughter)

WHISTLER: Thank you for the compliment. (Laughter)

HOLKER: How long do you take to knock off one of your pictures?

WHISTLER: Oh, I “knock one off” possibly in a couple of days – (Laughter) – one day to do the work and another to finish it…

HOLKER: The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?

WHISTLER: No. I ask it for the knowledge I...

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