UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Greenhithe

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.364)
Number: 173
Date: 1877
Medium: drypoint
Size: 151 x 227 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 25
Catalogues: K.165; M.161; W.135
Impressions taken from this plate  (25)
Etching: PK165_01 (plate)
Recto, above; verso, below:
Etching: PK165_02 (plate)
The copper plate of Greenhithe bears the stamp of 'B. MAIRE / PLANEUR A PARIS'. This stamp has been found on only seven extant copper plates: Greenhithe, Shipping at Liverpool [100], Sketches of Heads [138], Speke Shore [139], Battersea Morn [174], Lindsey Houses [161] and Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2 [159]. The size of these copper plates is not identical and dates appear to range from about 1867 to 1877. Whistler could have bought several plates at the same time or different occasions when visiting Paris. However, none of the known subjects were done in Paris.
Several of these plates were executed in Liverpool but Greenhithe and Battersea: Dawn were both drawn on the Thames. They were close in size and could be considered a pair.
The copper plate was cancelled with long slightly curving diagonal lines. The cancelled plate was probably among plates bought at Whistler's bankruptcy sale by the Fine Art Society, London. It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879.
The copper plate was probably among those acquired in exchange for lithographs from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851), by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). 11 The plate was given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.

11: Note by R. Birnie Philip, inserted in the album, Hunterian Art Gallery.