UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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The Open Book

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(49940)
Number: 89
Date: 1861
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 152 x 115 mm
Signed: 'Whistler.' at lower right
Inscribed: '1861' at lower right
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 17
Catalogues: K.84; M.79
Impressions taken from this plate  (17)

PUBLICATION

It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879.

EXHIBITIONS

No exhibition is known in Whistler's lifetime. After his death, one impression was shown at the Whistler Memorial exhibition in London in 1905. 4

4: London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 387).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Surviving impressions are almost all still in the album of cancelled impressions. For instance, the British Museum bought an album in 1887 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0840206), and Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought a set from Knoedler & Co. in 1893 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0840201). Thomas Glen Arthur (1858-1907) also acquired a set in 1887 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0840212) which later went to Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) owned two sets, probably acquired with the plates (Graphic with a link to impression #K0840203, Graphic with a link to impression #K0840204) which were given to the University of Glasgow.