UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: dowdeswell

Passages de l'Opéra

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1903.156)
Number: 386
Date: 1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 129 x 218 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 6
Catalogues: K.418; M.367; W.256
Impressions taken from this plate  (6)

PUBLICATION

Passages de l'Opéra was not published.

EXHIBITIONS

It was exhibited by F. Keppel & Co. in New York in 1899. 6 Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent an impression to the Caxton Club exhibition in Chicago in 1900. 7

Following Whistler's death, Mansfield lent his impression to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in Boston in 1904. An impression was also shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904. Ernest Marsh (fl. 1935) lent another to the London Memorial show in 1905. 8

6: New York 1899 (no cat. no.).

7: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 222); See REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

8: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 182); New York 1904a (cat. no. 276); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 256).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Impressions were sold by Whistler to several print dealers in 1888 for a comparatively high price, £12.12.0, to H. Wunderlich & Co., Roland F. Knoedler (1856-1932), and Messrs Dowdeswell. 9

On 2 July 1890 Whistler sent 19 etchings to South Kensington Museum, of which No. 16, 'Passages de L'Opéra', was among works returned on 21 August. 10

An impression from the 'Cox collection' - probably James Cox-Cox (ca 1849- d.1901) - was bought from Messrs Obach & Co., London, by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in November 1903 (Graphic with a link to impression #K4180102). Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) owned an impression, which was bequeathed to the New York Public Library (Graphic with a link to impression #K4180106). One owned by Harry Brisbane Dick (1855-1916) was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1917 (Graphic with a link to impression #K4180103). Another was acquired, possibly through Wunderlich's, by Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) (Graphic with a link to impression #K4180105) and bequeathed to Cornell University by William P. Chapman, Jr.

9: 29 June, 27 July, 17 November 1888, GUW #13052, #13660, #13028.

10: GUW #13044.