UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1904.59)
Number: 159
Date: 1876/1877
Medium: drypoint
Size: 228 x 155 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 6
Known impressions: 22
Catalogues: K.171; M.168; W.139
Impressions taken from this plate  (22)
Etching: PK171_01 (plate)
Recto, above; verso, below:
Etching: PK171_02 (plate)
The copper plate bears the stamp of 'B. MAIRE / PLANEUR A PARIS'. This stamp has been found on only seven extant copper plates: Shipping at Liverpool [100], Sketches of Heads [138], Speke Shore [139], Battersea Morn [174], Greenhithe [173], Lindsey Houses [161] and this drypoint. The size of these copper plates is not identical but range from Battersea Morn [174] at 150 x 225 mm to 231 x 155 mm. The dates ranges from about 1867 to 1877.
Several of these plates were executed in Liverpool but The Thames towards Erith and Battersea: Dawn were both drawn on the Thames and obviously the portrait of Irving was made in London.
Whistler could have bought several plates at the same time or different occasions when visiting Paris or have had them sent to him from Paris, possibly by Auguste Delâtre (1822-1907).
The plate was cancelled with diagonal lines across the figure. The cancelled copper 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 from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) in exchange for lithographs by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). 12 The plate was given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.

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