UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Street at Saverne

Impression: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
(1943.3.8406)
Number: 14
Date: 1858
Medium: etching and open bite or sandpaper ground
Size: 209 x 159 mm
Signed: 'Whistler' at lower left
Inscribed: 'Imp. Delatre. Rue St. Jacques' at lower right (2-3); erased (4)
Set/Publication: 'French Set', 1858
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 81
Catalogues: K.19; M.19; T.7; W.11
Impressions taken from this plate  (81)

TECHNIQUE

Comparative image
This composition was based on a pencil and wash drawing, A street at Saverne [m0237]. It may have been etched back in Paris, rather than during the Rhine trip. The etching is the reverse of the drawing, which may have been traced onto the plate.
A variety of techniques were used to vary the textures and depth of shadow. Sandpaper ground or open bite was used in conjunction with horizontal shading on the sky to produce a more regular dark effect, and considerable plate tone was often used on that part of the image. The nocturnal effect was further enhanced by printing some impressions on blue-grey paper (i.e. Graphic with a link to impression #K0190402). Pennell commented on the style and printing method used:
'Even in this early plate from the French Set there is, with the scrawling sureness and freedom of line, the real etched lines, and each of the lines means something. Yet it is not immaculate, perfect work like Meryon's, there is a big mess of foul biting in the foreground and there are passages of overbiting and underbiting all over the plate. But Whistler with simple lines, though some are unnecessary and scrawled, got the effect of night, which he was after. I do not know how this plate was bitten, but I imagine the whole subject was drawn, then the plate put in the bath and then when slightly bitten the lighter parts stopped out, bitten again, in the old fashioned way, the darks bitten the longest.' 11

11: Pennell 1919 A , pp. 48-50.

PRINTING

Over seventy impressions of Street at Saverne have been located in public collections. Most impressions - over thirty - are of the third, published, state.
An impression of the first state owned by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) bears the number '2' in graphite pencil, which may have been written by the artist and refer to the numbering of proofs or states, or be a sales record - it was inscribed and signed by Whistler about 1874 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190201). It is in dark brown ink on cream laid paper with a knobbly texture. Another first state is in dark brown ink on laid paper with a cursive 'P' watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190202). A proof of the second state is also in dark brown ink on off-white laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190302).
Impression: K0190303
Later impressions - from the third state as published - include several dramatic impressions in black ink on blue-grey chine collé (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190303, reproduced above; Graphic with a link to impression #K0190402, Graphic with a link to impression #K0190405); and others on various pale shades of chine collé including ivory (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190408, Graphic with a link to impression #K0190414), off-white (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190406), pale grey (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190406), and cream (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190418).
A few variations occur, with impressions on ivory Asian laid (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190304); cream 'antique' (pre-1800) laid paper with Britannia watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190403); ivory Japanese paper taken from a book (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190404); greenish grey 'modern' (post-1800) laid (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190427); and heavy-weight pale grey fibrous wove paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190429).
Some impressions of the fourth state were heavily inked to emphasize the nocturnal effect (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190515, Graphic with a link to impression #K0190513). Mansfield notes:
'The richness of printing in some of the states of the etching obscured the basic details. Much of the effectiveness of the printing was due to the expertise of the printer, Auguste Delâtre, in manipulating ink on the surface of the plate for expressive effects.' 12

12: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 18).

Other late impressions - including posthumous impressions - of the fourth state include ones printed in black ink on ivory (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190502) and buff (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190515) Japanese tissue; on buff wove paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190506); cream laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190508), and tan chine appliqué (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190507); as well as in blue-black ink on ivory Asian laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0190511).