UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: copley society

The Wine Glass

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1888.21)
Number: 38
Date: 1859
Medium: etching
Size: 83 x 55 mm
Signed: 'Whistler' at lower left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 40
Catalogues: K.27; M.27; T.28; W.31
Impressions taken from this plate  (40)

PUBLICATION

The Wine Glass was never published.

EXHIBITIONS

Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) lent impressions to the Union League Club in New York in 1881, which were described as 'Trial proof' (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270105) and 'The same. The effect much increased.' (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270223). 20 Years later an impression was lent by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) to another private collectors' club, the Caxton Club, which organised an exhibition in Chicago in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270202). 21

20: New York 1881 (cat. nos. 46, 47).

21: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 31).

Apart from this it was rarely exhibited, except at two large selling exhibitions at H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898 when an impression was bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270102), and 1903. 22

It was shown in the Memorial Exhibitions after Whistler's death, including the Copley Society show in Boston in 1904 and the Grolier Club in New York, also in 1904, and at the London Memorial in 1905, to which an impression was lent by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934). 23

22: New York 1898 (cat. no. 30). See REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

23: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 26); New York 1904a (cat. no. 33); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 31).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) owned three impressions, which were sold through H. Wunderlich & Co. of New York in 1898 to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270102, Graphic with a link to impression #K0270103, Graphic with a link to impression #K0270205). Freer had already bought an impression from Wunderlich's in 1888 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270204) and was to buy yet another from Thomas Way (1837-1915) in London in 1905 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270203).
The British Museum bought one from Percy Thomas (1846-1922) in 1872 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270104). 24 Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) would have bought one about that time (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270105, Graphic with a link to impression #K0270223). Other early collectors included Alfred Beurdeley (1847-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270222); George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270208) and - a little later - Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270202).

24: B.M. Register of Purchases ... 1872.

Auction prices for this etching were at first low. The London print dealer Hogarth bought one from the collection of Philippe Burty (1830-1890) at Sotheby's on 30 April 1876 (lot 751) for only £0.5.0. In 1892, the print dealer Edmund F. Deprez (1851-1915)of Deprez & Gutekunst bought a first state for £1.1.0 and Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) of F. Keppel & Co., a second state for £0.9.0, at the sale of the collection of the late Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891). 25 Keppel almost certainly sold the latter to Howard Mansfield (1849-1938), and it was later acquired by Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937) and finally by Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971) who gave it to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (Graphic with a link to impression #K0270214).

25: Sotheby's, 3 March 1892 (lots 79-80).