UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: british museum

Rag Pickers, Quartier Mouffetard, Paris

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.440)
Number: 29
Date: 1858
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 152 x 90 mm
Signed: 'Whistler' at lower right
Inscribed: '1858' at lower right (5)
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 5
Known impressions: 80
Catalogues: K.23; M.23; T.31; W.17
Impressions taken from this plate  (80)

TECHNIQUE

This plate was conceived and executed primarily in etching. The only certain drypoint lines are those of the date '1858', which was added in the final state.

PRINTING

An exceptional number - over eighty - impressions of Rag Pickers, Quartier Mouffetard, Paris are known. The copper plate has not been located, and some of these impressions were either printed in the 1890s or after Whistler's death.
Early impressions are printed in black ink on ivory (darkened to buff) laid paper with a shell watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230102); off-white wove (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230202); and ivory wove paper taken from a book (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230302). There are impressions of the fourth state on various papers including cream laid paper, possibly Asian (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230401); ivory 'antique' (pre-1800) laid paper with 'FORGE' watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230402); cream laid with 'F' and 'E' countermarks (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230406); and thick card-like wove (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230408).
There are at least fifty impressions of the final (fifth) state with the figures, which were presumably printed in or after 1861, and some much later. They include impressions in black ink on Japanese paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230502, Graphic with a link to impression #K0230503, Graphic with a link to impression #K0230507); on wove (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230505, Graphic with a link to impression #K0230510); and on laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230526, Graphic with a link to impression #K0230530) including greenish/grey paper from a book (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230508); and laid paper with water- or counter-marks, such as 'IV' (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230504), a crown (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230514, Graphic with a link to impression #K0230533), '1820' (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230536), and possibly Strasbourg Bend with 'W' (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230542). Nearly all impressions are in black ink, but a few are in dark brown ink (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230533, Graphic with a link to impression #K0230508, Graphic with a link to impression #K0230538).
It is very likely that some of these impressions of the final state were printed in the 1890s or after Whistler's death. Another example of a possible late printing is in black ink on blue-tinged off-white 'modern' paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0230528) and was bequeathed by Frederick Keppel (1845-1912), who may well have been involved in organising a late print-run, to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.