UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: british museum

Seymour

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.442)
Number: 30
Date: 1858/1859
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 135 x 99 mm
Signed: 'Whistler.' at lower right
Inscribed: ' "Seymour" ' at lower left (2-final)
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 29
Catalogues: K.31; M.32; T.17; W.23
Impressions taken from this plate  (29)

PUBLICATION

Seymour was not published.

EXHIBITIONS

An impression was exhibited at the Union League Club in New York in 1881, lent by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310223). 12 Another impression was lent by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) and shown in the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310202). 13

Othwise it was rarely exhibited, though one was for sale in a print dealer's show, at H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310204) and was bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310204). A later Wunderlich show (1903) included both an 'Early impression' and 'Another and richer impression. The leg is altered.' 14

Finally, it was shown, after Whistler's death, in Memorial Exhibitions including the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, lent by Freer (under the title 'Boy in Scotch Dress, Standing'), and in the London Memorial show of 1905, lent by King Edward VII. 15

12: New York 1881 (cat. no. 34).

13: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 23).

14: New York 1903b (cat. no. 18a and b); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

15: New York 1904a (cat. no. 24,25); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 23).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Some impressions may have stayed in the family, and certainly both Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310204) and Whistler's great-nephew, Joseph Whistler Revillon (1886-1955) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310205), owned impressions, though the latter may have bought it from Colnaghi's.
Early collectors included the British Museum, which bought one from Percy Thomas (1846-1922) in 1872 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310219; see also Graphic with a link to impression #K0310220). Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) bought one, probably in the 1870s (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310223) and George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909) may have bought one much earlier (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310206). James Anderson Rose (1819-1890) had three states of Seymour, which were sold at Sotheby's in a three-day sale from 27 June 1876 (lots 666-668).
An etching called 'Little Seymour' was sold back to Whistler by Edmond Gosselin (1849-1917), in 1888 for 40 francs, but it is not known for sure if that was Seymour, Standing [10] or Seymour [30]. 16

Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891) owned an impression, and his sale at Sotheby's in 1892 included 'Seymour', which was bought by the Fine Art Society for £0.11.0. A few days later another dealer, Frederick Keppel (1845-1912), bought one at Christie's for £1.1.0. 17

American collecttors included Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310209) and Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) by 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310202). H. Wunderlich & Co. sold one impression to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1889 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310203) and another, which had come from the collection of Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910), in 1898 (Graphic with a link to impression #K0310204).

16: 28 December 1888, GUW #13076.

17: Sotheby's, 3 March 1892 (lot 68); Christie's, 8-9 March 1892 (lot 300).