UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Emanuel Hospital

Impression:

()
Number: 469
Date: 1892
Medium: etching (?)
Size: 140 x 220 mm
Signed: unknown
Inscribed: unknown
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 0
Catalogues: K.-; M.-; T.-; W.-
Impressions taken from this plate  (0)
The copper plate has not been located. It was not exactly the same size as any other plate, but close in size to several earlier plates including Palaces, Brussels [338] and Jubilee Place, Chelsea [276], which dated from 1887. However, it definitely was used later, in 1892, when Whistler wrote: 'The Emanuel Hospital is not yet bitten in - but you may tell your friend that he shall have put aside for him one of the early proofs ... However we shall see what I make of the plate.' 19

19: Whistler to W. Heinemann, [October 1892], GUW #10789.

Comparative image
According to Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956) the etched plate measured '5 1/2 x 8 11/16"' and was in 'Fine Condition' when he printed it at the request of Whistler's sister-in-law Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), although he also noted that there was 'a lot of Fowelling on this plate' presumably meaning foul biting. 20

Comparative image

However, the plate did not come with the rest of Whistler's estate to the University of Glasgow, and is presumed lost or destroyed.

20: Note dated 18 June 1931, 94-120-145-3 (f. 8); see Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340, 345, 349. Hopkinson's reproductions of Sparks's sketches are reproduced above and below.