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Court of the Monastery of St Augustine, Bourges

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.589)
Number: 403
Date: 1888
Medium: etching
Size: 131 x 220 mm
Signed: butterfly at left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.398; M.397
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)

PUBLICATION

Court of the Monastery of St Augustine, Bourges was never published. However, it can be considered part of Whistler's unpublished 'Renaissance Set'.

EXHIBITIONS

It was rare and few impressions were available for exhibition. One impression was lent by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3980102). 10 Another, owned by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938), was exhibited in Philadelphia in 1902 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3980105). 11

Then, after Whistler's death, impressions were shown in the Memorial Exhibitions, in Boston in 1904, the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, and in London in 1905. 12

10: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 288).

11: Philadelphia 1902 (cat. no. 947 [277]).

12: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 218); New York 1904a (cat. no. 367); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 330).

SALES & COLLECTORS

On 18 July 1889 Whistler noted that he had three impressions of 'St Augustine'. 13 Whistler sold an impression (under the misleading title 'St. Augusta') on 23 July 1889 to Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) for £10.10.0 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3980105). 14

He sold another in 1897 to H. Wunderlich & Co. of New York, again for £10.10.0, and they recorded one sold in 1899. 15 Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) owned an impression by 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3980102), which may have come from Wunderlich's.

For once, Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) did not acquire an impression, and it was only recently, in 2004, that an impression was given by Peter and Paula Lunder to the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (Graphic with a link to impression #K3980103).

13: GUW #13235.

14: GUW #13046.

15: Wunderlich's to Whistler, September 1897, GUW #07287; 24 March 1899, #07305.