UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: grolier club

Rochester Row, Westminster

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1938.1924)
Number: 383
Date: 1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 152 x 228 mm
Signed: butterfly at left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 5
Catalogues: K.269; M.265; W.219
Impressions taken from this plate  (5)

PUBLICATION

Rochester Row was never published.

EXHIBITIONS

Impressions were exhibited in New York by H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 and 1903, and - after the artist's death - at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904. 9

One impression was lent by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) to a succession of exhibitions - the show organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900, and after the artist's death, the Whistler Memorial shows in Boston in 1904 and London in 1905, and a later exhibition in Boston in 1910 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2690z02). 10

9: New York 1898 (cat. no. 179); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

10: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 18); Boston 1904 (cat. no. 165); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 219).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Whistler set a price of £10.10.0. The first recorded sale - as 'Rochester Row' - was to H. Wunderlich & Co. of New York on 29 June 1888. 11 Other impressions were sold to Wunderlich's in 1894 and again in 1899 (when the firm reported having sold two at £10.10.0 each) and 1900 (when they reported one sold). 12

Several of the etchings were numbered on the verso as they were sold, by the artist or by the dealer buying from Whistler. Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) bought an impression that was numbered 'No 13' ; this went through several distinguished collections including those of Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937), Emma Regina Martin (1921-2009) and Charles C. Cunningham (1910-1979) before being acquired by the National Gallery of Australia (Graphic with a link to impression #K2690z02). 'Rochester Row - Westminster' was 'No. 14' among 24 prints sold to Roland F. Knoedler (1856-1932) on 27 July 1888. This impression was later acquired by Clarence Buckingham (1855-1913) and eventually passed to the Art Institute of Chicago (Graphic with a link to impression #K2690202). 13 Finally 'Rochester Row - Westminster' was 'No. 9' among ten prints sold by Whistler to Messrs Dowdeswell on 21 January 1889. This impression went into the collection of James Cox-Cox (ca 1849- d.1901), and was sold later, through Obach & Co., to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1903 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2690102). 14

11: GUW #13052.

12: [January/June 1894], GUW #07271; Wunderlich's to Whistler, 24 March 1899, #07305, and 6 April 1900, #07322.

13: GUW #13660.

14: GUW #13030.