UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Flaming Forge

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(54936)
Number: 490
Date: 1901
Medium: etching
Size: 192 x 154 mm
Signed: butterfly at left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 16
Catalogues: K.-; M.-; T.-; W.-
Impressions taken from this plate  (16)

TECHNIQUE

It is an etching, drawn with rather tentative broken outlines, fine shading and delicate cross-hatching.
Whistler drew several studies for the composition in a sketchbook: The Flaming Forge, Ajaccio [m1678] and r.: The Forge; v.: Smiths, Ajaccio [m1679], recto and verso. The first of these contains all the elements of the composition, except that the dog is standing beside the mules, and there appears to be a table on the opposite side.
Comparative image
r.: The Forge; v.: Smiths, Ajaccio [m1679].
The drawings show radically different shading of the interior, one, reproduced above, being shaded extremely softly, and the other, shown below, with long lines of diagonal shading. The etching itself has a rich, dark interlace of cross-hatched lines.
Comparative image
The Flaming Forge, Ajaccio [m1678].
Although few such detailed studies for etchings have survived, this shows that it was a method used by Whistler at times. Small sketches and sketchbooks are easily lost, and the survival of two such sketchbooks and many drawings from Ajaccio probably reflects their date (1901, only two years before Whistler's death).

PRINTING

No impression printed by Whistler has been located. 25 impressions - most printed in dark brown ink on ivory laid paper - were printed and signed on the verso by Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956). According to Sparks, they were 'Printed on his own paper', that is, Whistler's paper. 8 One is in dark brown ink on wove paper (Graphic with a link to impression #E030101). Several are on a variety of watermarked laid papers, Pro Patria (Graphic with a link to impression #E030113, Graphic with a link to impression #E030115, Graphic with a link to impression #E030116 ), Foolscap (Graphic with a link to impression #E030110, Graphic with a link to impression #E030114), 'Fellows' (Graphic with a link to impression #E030117) and 'HS' (Graphic with a link to impression #E030108).

8: Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340, 347, 352.

Impression: E030117
Sparks noted that 'One of them has a large smudge of Black on the top corner where burr was left where his vice held the plate -' ; this mark is noticeable in one impression, reproduced above (Graphic with a link to impression #E030117). Sparks added that 'the others have a row of 6 dots remains of the vice mark after the burr was removed' and this is indeed the case in most impressions (i.e. Graphic with a link to impression #E030115). 9

9: Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 347, 352.

They are printed with a margin of about 40 mm, rather than being trimmed to the platemark as Whistler would have done. Thus there is no intent to deceive a purchaser into thinking these were printed by Whistler. Both the paper and slight variations of tone in the printing vary what was on the whole a technically proficient and consistent print run.