And Whistler drew the line on the “pot and kettle” stage and brought suit for libel.
The case was heard in November, 1878, before Baron Huddleston and a special jury.
The cross-examination of Whistler by the attorney-general, who appeared for the defendant, was one of the features of the case, and brought out many of the artist’s views concerning art and art critics.
It is said that during the trial one of Whistler’s counsel was holding up the nocturne in controversy before the jury, when one of the counsel on the other side called out:
“You are holding that upside down.”
“No, I’m not.”
“How do you know which is the top and which is the bottom?”
“Oh, I don’t know; only when I saw it hanging in the Grosvenor Gallery it was the other side up.”
Whereupon—out of deference to precedent—the nocturne was reversed.